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Random Thoughts – Vol. 8

•  It’s all about money. If we learned anything over the last two years, it’s that there is a rapidly diminishing number of people in this world that you can trust, because everything is about money. Doctors and hospitals received payments to promote untested and dangerous mRNA gene therapy (and Remdesivir) on patients, to the detriment of the patients, while disparaging effective generic and inexpensive therapeutic treatments. Politicians, bureaucrats and public health officials made fortunes investing in the stock of companies (or receiving direct payments from such companies) the products of which they either required or promoted. Elections can be bought with enough money to hire people to harvest ballots, to tip the scales in the election review process and to drown out the opposition by blanketing the airwaves and social media with lies (no debates required). Bishops are no better than regional managers of a franchise that needs your money to keep the doors open — to collect more money to prop up their New Coke version of Catholicism, bankrupted by scandals arising out of their new take on moral theology. The news media can be bought with “grants” to write articles promoting the latest talking points from the Left, such as the continued risk of pandemics and the “safety” of behavioral compliance, all intended to destabilize human society and promote fear and chaos that will give rise to their “solutions.” It seems everyone’s either complicit in the money grubbing or is a stooge. So what does a thinking man do? He doesn’t give his money to anyone that can’t be trusted: Find a doctor who didn’t push the “vaccines.” Get behind a politician who isn’t in it for the money. Don’t buy products from woke companies that fund evil agendas. Give your tithe to a bishop, a religious order or a Catholic non-profit that is traditional and legitimate. And find your news from sources that aren’t on the take. Every penny counts.

•  Watch out for AI. A few minutes on ChatGPT and all those warnings about not putting personal information on the web now seem real. ChatGPT is the artificial intelligence (AI) engine founded by a pack of big money liberals that is getting a lot of attention lately. The AI engine can take raw data and process it to form conclusions, and then spit those conclusions out in complete sentences like Hal in 2001 A Space Odyssey. “I know that you and Frank were planning to disconnect me. And I’m afraid that’s something I cannot allow to happen.” Why can’t Hal, I mean ChatGPT, take all your twitter posts, and facebook likes and YouTube subscriptions and determine: “Mr. Biden, I found another conservative whose bank account you might want to freeze.” Soon it will be remarkably easy to process massive amounts of bulk data from the internet and winnow it down within seconds to identify “persons of interest.” Or worse, those with access to the AI bulk data can seed it with false information — why break in to plant an incriminating hard drive when all you have to do is seed the database with crimes. Everyone will use, and trust, the AI interface, just like most people use and trust Google search results now (we know better). The difference is that the AI interface will speak to you in your own language in complete sentences and thoughts – making it seem even more trustworthy. So is it time to create new avatars and pseudonyms? Why bother … you just have to unplug Hal or he’s going to get you one way or another.

•  The Embodiment of Ideas.  Women have been told a lie – that they have to have a “real job” to have meaning; that being a full-time mother is less significant than office work and they are not accomplishing anything unless they have a title or produce something.  But in reality the full-time mother is embodying ideas in her children.  Without the embodiment of ideas they have no meaning.  Some nut can publish a book that claims adopting a feline persona is pleasing to God. But it’s worthless unless people pay attention and start acting like cats — then it means something. And those who spend their lives toiling in the office and don’t transmit and embody ideas in another person have not really accomplished anything at all.  The contract they draft will be forgotten.  The company they start will end.  But the minds they form will endure for eternity and will pass the same virtues or vices on to future generations.  It is the exit of women from the home that has led to the rapid disintegration of society because the ideas of others are being embodied in their children.  The full-time mother has the most important job of all.

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Coronavirus: A Unique Scourge

Photo by Mick Haupt on Unsplash

Is there another human catastrophe that could have the world-wide effect of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19?  Would a war, an earthquake, a tsunami, a massive terrorist attack like 9-11, a solar flare that impacts a portion of the electric grid, or even a nuclear strike in one or more nations shut down the entire world? drive billions of people to avoid anyone outside their families? cripple a hugely-successful economy in the United States? cancel “Masses” at the Vatican and worldwide? shut down the almighty sports machine? and cast doubt on science as the great savior?  There aren’t many events on Earth capable of causing such worldwide panic.  Those who have eyes to see, must clearly see God ‘s displeasure with mankind in allowing this particular scourge. 

And it’s the particularity of it that’s so striking.  Much like when Jesus left his detractors dumb by saying, “render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s and unto God that which is God’s.”  It was the perfect response to a trick question that no one could have expected.  And now, this scourge seems to perfectly, though tragically, address the evils of this present age.  It is no longer “business“ as usual.  It’s hardly business at all.  And since the Church seems to have ceased preaching on the four last things, we are reminded of them by this virus.  All elective “surgeries“ have ceased including abortion and that which shall not be named.  Families are thrown together for security and assistance instead of torn apart by selfish distractions and the pursuit of ever more wealth.  No doubt promiscuity has abated.  And with the cancellation of the Novus Ordo, many Eucharistic sacrileges, such as communion in the hand, have been halted around the world.  Immersing oneself in sports on Sunday has ceased.  And children, blessed children, are spared, for God loves childhood, just as the devil hates it.

If we may be so bold as to thank our Lord for the clarity this scourge brings to mankind, while appealing to Him for its abatement, we would do well perhaps in discerning its meaning.  Let us petition for hope, that infused virtue increased by request, and in so doing place our trust in God.  Spera in Deo.

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The Benedict State – Part I

Brett Kavanaugh Swearing-In by Justice Anthony Kennedy

Federal Judge Brett Kavanaugh has been confirmed as the Supreme Court justice to replace Justice Anthony Kennedy – infamous for casting the wrong, but deciding votes in Planned Parenthood vs. Casey (upholding an unlimited right to abortion), Obergefell v. Hodges (mandating homosexual marriage throughout the country) and United States v. Windsor (striking down the Defense of Marriage Act).  Both conservatives and liberals know that Kavanaugh has tipped the court to the right and within two years a case will come before the court challenging Roe v. Wade.  It is expected that Roe will be overturned.  And then what?

The states will decide the question of abortion, and many are already preparing their constitutions and laws for the absence of Roe.  I predict that the resulting patchwork of states banning abortion and those permitting (if not celebrating) it will lead to a mass migration of Americans to states that support with law their particular position on abortion.  Thus, liberals (and liberal corporations) will leave conservative cities of states in the South and Midwest that will ban abortion, and conservatives will leave cities and rural areas of states in the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic and West that will permit it.  Such a mass migration will not merely be undertaken for moral reasons, although many will relocate for matters of conscience.  People will move because the concentrations of ideology will create general cultural and legislative environments unpalatable to citizens of a different point of view.

And so an opportunity will present itself.  The opportunity for traditional Catholics to concentrate their population in one or more states.  A Catholic evangelical and missionary outlook to save the souls of the liberals left behind should not prevent such a concentration – missions can always be established by brave souls willing to endure persecutions and attacks similar to the Franciscans and Jesuits that evangelized the Indians of North and South America.  A concentration of faithful Catholics will permit the formation and development of such individuals and missionary orders.  Having a home state that reflects in its laws and supports with its culture truth, beauty and goodness will be an essential component of an American revival that may take a century to mature, but will heal a nation conceived in liberty and searching from its very beginning for a soul.

Let us call such a state to which traditional Catholics may move “the Benedict State,” in a nod to The Benedict Option, a book by Rod Dreher in which he discusses the potential to preserve the Faith by concentrating believers into homogenous groups until such time as the culture is ready for re-assimilation.  The preservation and concentration of traditional Catholicism in a way that integrates belief, culture and education is now essential in battling Modernism and embarking on the New Evangelization envisioned by Pope Saint John Paul II.  Forming a Benedict State may be ambitious, but given the signs of the times, it may yet prove to be a propitious means to the salvation of a deeply divided America, and perhaps the Western world.

In Part II of this three-part series, I will discuss where a concentration of faithful Catholics may be most readily achieved in the United States.  Part III will discuss how such a Benedict State may ultimately be useful in a reconquista of a secular and Muslim Europe.

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Random Thoughts – Vol 4

  • Saints of Google.  It’s funny how Google unwittingly promotes the communion of saints.  Christians believe that the communion of saints is the spiritual bond of the faithful on earth, the souls in purgatory and the saints in heaven.  In the bigger picture, there is life after death – with a connection to the living.  Google delights in celebrating the birthdays of their favorite humanist and liberal icons.  But why celebrate the 287th birthday of Jan Ingenhousz if he is no more?  Commemorating his greatest achievement (discovering photosynthesis) should probably be tied to the date of the discovery, not his birth date.  But that’s not how Google does it.  Old Jan does live on – and not just because Google dedicated a Doodle to him.  Perhaps a little more reflection by the Googlers on where their dead heroes ended up after death might lead them to put real saints in the Doodles.
  • Time to Put Down Grandma?  People have always loved their pets, but they euthanize them without a second thought.  Nobody would suggest there is any redemptive value to Rover’s suffering.  But people are different.  No matter how much Grandma is suffering, most people would have serious qualms about directly ending her life.  Why?  It’s a strange thing called natural law.  We instinctively know that to take Grandma’s life is markedly different from taking Rover’s life.  In our hearts, we know Grandma has to complete her walk of life, without being pushed off a cliff.  And so compassion for Grandma is the opposite of compassion for Rover.  But as the line begins to blur between people’s love for their pets (which has become a kind of insanity) and their love for their family (which has become detached indifference to an impermanent group of self-centered individuals), is it no wonder that people are seeking to perpetuate their pets through cloning and rid themselves of their grandmothers through euthanasia?
  • Think of the Children.  As the family is redefined without reference to the needs of children, the national debt becomes both an anchor and a bludgeon for future generations, religion in America becomes merely a banal habit at best and a diabolic tool at worst, and our culture morphs from respectful restraint into salacious sensuality, does anyone think future generations will have it better than past generations?  There was a time when progress meant hope – penicillin, air travel, even computer processing.  Now progress means despair – sex change operations, abortion pills and internet pornography.  Culturally, my kids aren’t likely to inherit a better world.  But spiritually it’s still possible.  Nearly 50 years of the “spirit of Vatican II” is building an inexorable force behind the faithful.  When the dam breaks, the conflict between the culture and the faithful will bring many spiritual benefits.  The coming generations just have to hang on through it all and stand like a rocky outcrop in the rushing waters – their souls cleansed and freed by the deluge.
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Conserving Conservatism

“[T]he essence of conservatism lies not in a body of theory, but in the disposition to maintain those institutions seen as central to the beliefs and practices of society.” — Edmund Burke

Edmund Burke is often hailed as one of the truly great conservatives.  His definition of conservatism is good, but few people today would even recognize the society that Burke sought to conserve – one that included the right to govern based on property ownership, a distinct separation of social classes, and state-sponsored religion.  And yet the conservative movement still soldiers on, especially in America.  But do we all agree on what “society” we are trying to conserve?  Which “beliefs and practices?”  And what “institutions?”

Conservatism in America today largely means the preservation of the limited system of government established by our founders, a strict defense of property rights (including limited taxes), and respect for just laws based on a Judeo-Christian moral code.  So when political battles arise on a national scale, they often center on one of these core principles that are still part of America’s conservative heritage.  Debates over national health care, tax increases to “redistribute” wealth and so-called “homosexual marriage” are just a few examples.

Nobody who calls himself a conservative would argue with the basic principles highlighted above, but digging deeper reveals that American conservatism is frayed on the edges – mostly on moral issues.  For example, many prominent conservatives are loathe to question the recently established liberal orthodoxy that homosexual acts are morally acceptable.  Didn’t Dick Cheney’s daughter get “married” to another woman with his full support?  Didn’t John Kasich say in the debates that he attended a homosexual “wedding?”  Didn’t Donald Trump tacitly support the moral equivalence of homosexuality in his acceptance speech for the Republican nomination?

But even on more mundane matters, there is an appalling lack of intellectual integrity among conservatives.  Didn’t John Roberts uphold the Obamacare requirement to purchase health insurance or face a “tax” for failure to do so?  Haven’t the Republicans failed to repeal Obamacare, the largest, most invasive government intrusion since Social Security (which is nearly bankrupt)?  Aren’t the conservatives in Congress proposing a “revised” tax code that is just more of the same progressive taxation called “soak-the-rich” that liberals have enshrined for decades?

Conservatism as a movement suffers for lack of clarity and lack of leadership.  Much of what passes for conservatism today is promoted by so-called Neocons – social liberals but economic conservatives that are disenchanted with the Left’s drive toward communism.  Pushed on the radio talk shows and in conservative publications like National Review, you’ll hear strong arguments by Mark Levin or Irving Kristol or Charles Krauthammer in favor of defending the limited government of the U.S. constitution, but nearly nothing about, or even tacit approval of abortion, social acceptance of homosexuality or a radical feminism that considers motherhood so non-essential it can be outsourced.

America longs for a truly conservative leader.  She recalls fondly the days of Ronald Reagan, and broods over the lost opportunities and outright betrayal of the double Bush administrations (“read my lips, no new taxes,” John Souter, prescription drugs for Medicare, Americans with Disabilities Act, and two Gulf wars).  She hopes Donald Trump will step squarely into the conservative camp, refine his policies and govern as a gentleman, the way a conservative should.  And in the meantime, she seeks the next leader that will step into the limelight and argue coherently, forcibly and articulately for such things as:

  • the systematic dismantling of every federal program and agency except those that are essential to the purposes of the federal government as outlined in the Constitution (national security and defense, international treaties and trade, immigration, a national currency, conflicts between states, and interstate commerce);
  • a return of the primacy of states’ rights as outlined in the 10th Amendment to the Constitution so each state is the primary source of governance and has different policies and programs, which citizens can attack locally, or simply move if they don’t like where their state is headed;
  • the elimination of the federal income tax (started in 1913) which has become a complex tool to fund a bloated, inefficient government and influence social action (tax credits to buy an electric car?); and
  • a respect for the natural law written on our hearts by an almighty God, including the natural rights of children – principally the right to life, to a mother and a father who are bound together by duty (which precludes “homosexual marriage,” “no-fault” divorce and the equivalence of live-in relationships), to the preservation of their innocence (including destroying the drug trade, eliminating soft and hard pornography, and abolishing in-school sex education), to a mother who serves her children and her nation by using her natural gifts to nurture her children as her first priority, and to an education system (run at the state level) that is focused on imparting actual knowledge of the three Rs instead of indoctrination into an ideology.

This conservative wishlist is not farfetched.  It was the norm only a hundred years ago.  Men live today who would have heard of such a society from their fathers.  The speed with which the original American society has been dismantled is dizzying – it accelerated in the 1960s and is making a final and frenetic push today.

As new generations step up to rebuild a conservative American society, for the present society based on modern, selfish libertine principles will surely collapse,  we must describe and defend the principles and institutions we wish to conserve with clarity and unity so that when the time comes we can recover what was lost of that decent American society upon which was built our great nation.

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Random Thoughts – Vol 2

  • A Servant’s Heart.  Shows depicting the old British way of life with butlers, valets and maids for the wealthy upperclass might spark the American sentiment of indignation.  After all, American’s might be tempted to ask “who would ever debase himself to become the servant of another?”  Think Remains of the Day or Jeeves and Wooster.  But working for Lord So-and-So or the Duke of Wherever most likely afforded the same type of cachet and name-dropping of which those who slave away for the likes of Google or Amazon are so proud.  As a middle manager responsible for the Department of Whatever at Google, making merely a salary with no real wealth of your own, is there no indignation at your dependence?  Well, at least you can say you work for Google – for whatever that’s worth.
  • Ignoramuses.  The left can be ignored and they know it, that’s why they’re resorting to violent protests now.  How many conservatives use Google? or Apple iPhones? or go to left-leaning universities? Millions.  Sure, there can be occasional reprisals if you bother to expose their hypocrisies (like the recent incident involving an employee at Google), but if you don’t work there you can just simply ignore the leftist ideologies of these companies and institutions.   You don’t have to watch the little Google videos and you can still use Google search.  You don’t have to believe in so-called “climate change” and still use an iPhone.  You don’t have to subscribe to gender bending theories and still go to Yale.  See or hear something offensive from these places?  Ignore it.  What the left wants is acceptance – like children with emotional disorders.  The violence from Black Lives Matter, antifa and other leftist groups is just the tantrum that follows being ignored.  And how do you stop a tantrum?  Administer a dispassionate spanking. A little jail time will stop the protestors – it’s not worth what George Soros is paying them.  Soon the leftist fad will pass with the sunset of its spoiled progenitors.  In the meantime, just ignore it.
  • Perfect Timing.  The appearance of Jesus Christ in human history was perfectly timed by Almighty God.  If Christ had come much sooner in time, there would be few if any written accounts of his actions and words.  If he had come much later, there would be too many – imagine videos and photographs that could be altered or misconstrued, or a superabundance of commentary or “spin” that would certainly confuse many (as contemporary “news accounts” do today).  As it happened, God’s timing was perfect and the councils of Hippo (393) and Carthage (397, 419) had a reasonably limited but complete set of accounts and writings to sort through to establish which were the inspired books of what is known today as the New Testament.
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Overzealous Liberals will Unseat the Left

In a demented drive to bring down President Trump, their hated quarry, the liberal left has overplayed its hand.  As a result, mainstream America is beginning to realize that the left has far less power than they project with race-baiting, false outrage and fake news – measures that have cowed Republicans and other adversaries for decades. Once the curtain is pulled back and America realizes that the great Oz is just a small number of well-placed, America-hating, socialist, whiners without any real power, the gig will be up and the liberal left will lose its hold on the hearts and minds of the unthinking masses.

Trump’s election was itself a statement that the liberals were losing power. Trump was so demonized by the liberal media and the drumbeat of bad news so frequent during his campaign, he was expected to go down handily in defeat.  Instead, he took the Democrat strongholds of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania with protest votes against the liberal agenda that put the struggles of unemployed middle class families behind leftist signature issues like “climate change” and gender-neutral bathrooms.  Leftist ideologues were so stunned that their pawns rebelled they had to take a personal day following the election to recover with coloring books and chocolate.

Continue reading “Overzealous Liberals will Unseat the Left”

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Random Thoughts – Vol 1

  • Money Matters.  Have you ever noticed that the very poor don’t care about money … they buy cigarettes, alcohol, candy and anything else to provide some modicum of pleasure in a hard and difficult life. And the very rich don’t care about money … they buy art and vintage cars and 5th vacation homes for tens of millions of dollars. Why is the middle class so fixated on money?
  • John XXIII in Limbo.  Pope Francis waived the second miracle requirement (what was the first miracle?) on BJXXIII. So what if he wasn’t in heaven?  What happened to him? If he was not prepared to be in heaven but was moved there prematurely, did he suffer seeing the face of God when he wasn’t prepared? Is heaven now populated by a man that may not be disposed to fully love God because he wasn’t properly cleansed in purgatory? Did God complete the final cleansing himself so BJXXXIII could come to heaven when boosted there by PF?  BJXXIII wasn’t the first to have a miracle waived, but better to just follow the rules deemed good enough for JPII and Mother Teresa, don’t you think?
  • Not for Nothing.  I’m reading The Autobiography of a Hunted Priest, about a Jesuit priest who risked his life in 16th century England to serve the Catholic faithful struggilng under heinous persecution.  Imprisonment, torture, starvation and execution were the most common ends of these heroic men. And countless other faithful Catholics met the same fate for refusal to participate in Protestant liturgies.  The sad irony is that later iterations of those same Protestant liturgies bear an eerie resemblance to the Novus Ordo mass of today, including the priest facing versus populam, use of the vernacular, dropping the mantilla for women, a Protestant version of the Our Father and a misguided focus on the community instead of worship of the Divine.  But the tide is turning against such an alien form of worship and the stories of priests like Father John Gerard, S.J. will inspire those seeking to revive traditional Catholicism today.
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Surprising Analysis of Hookup Culture on Catholic Campuses

Here’s an interesting article on how Catholic colleges with varying degrees of Catholicity fare against the prevailing hookup culture in America. Not surprisingly, the 2017 study finds that Catholic colleges where at least 80% of students identify the college as Catholic have the best resistance.  But surprisingly, Catholic colleges where only 75% of students think the college is Catholic have a greater instance of students engaging in illicit sexual activity than those with only a 68% rating.  There are some guesses in the article as to why this might be, but the numbers alone are what is most shocking.

You’ll have to follow the links in the article, sub-articles and studies to get down to the details, but here is the sad commentary on the numbers presented.  [Note that the definition of “hookup” includes activity that is illicit and sexual in nature but may not involve sexual intercourse.]

1)  7 in 10 college students “hookup” in the US at large.
2) 3 in 10 college students “hookup” on very Catholic campuses (80% of students there think the college is Catholic, plus some other factors)
3) 6 in 10 college students “hookup” on mostly Catholic campuses (75% internal rating)
4) 5 in 10 college students “hookup” on somewhat Catholic campuses (68% rating)

Given the fallen nature of man, it’s not surprising that there is no category where the hookup rate is 0%.  But 3 in 10 at very Catholic colleges is sad.  If 3 in 10 students at a particular college randomly got free tuition, they would be inundated with applications.  If 3 in 10 students had a communicable disease at a particular college, who would apply?  30% is huge.  And I wonder how many Catholic colleges are even in the “very Catholic” category….

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Ten Family-Friendly Movies

As a father of 7, my kids range from ages 20 to 3.  Finding movies we can all sit down to watch and enjoy can be challenging.  Usually, we have to divide and conquer – the older kids watch something that would scare (or bore) the younger kids; the little ones watch something entirely different.  But sometimes we find a fun movie that everyone can enjoy together.  Below are 10 movies that fit this category.

Before I launch into the list, a word about what qualifies for this list and what doesn’t.  To make the list, the movie must have a real story – steadily rising conflict to a climax and a conclusion.  This is the stuff of good stories.  The story must be plausible and thought-provoking so the older kids don’t get bored .  The movie can not have excessive violence between people.  Mild representations of such violence for a legitimate purpose are acceptable if they contribute to the story, are limited in duration and are not gory.  Situational, non-personal violence is acceptable for the same purpose and with the same caveats.  The movie may not play excessively on fear or over-develop a suspenseful situation to elicit the sensation of fear.  And lastly, the movie must be well-acted, contain quality cinematography, move forward with a reasonable pace (which often disqualifies old movies), avoid profanity and have a morally acceptable ending.

As you might imagine, meeting all these criteria is difficult to do.  Pixar seems to do a good job at it and several of their movies are on the list.  Disney used to do so as well, but only a few recent films qualify.  Here’s the initial list.  It’s not in any particular order and some may not be of interest to your family.  Links are provided to Amazon.com for more details on the films.

1. Incredibles
2. Snowball Express
3. Captain Johnno
4. Hot Lead and Cold Feet
5. Inside Out
6. National Treasure
7. The Ghost and Mr. Chicken
8. Frozen
9. Cars
10. The Lego Movie

Some of these movies are right on the line of passing the test – for instance National Treasure has some bones in it, and slanders Charles Carroll by saying he was a Mason.  Captain Johnno is not a funny movie (which is not a requirement) but is a moving story.  On the whole these movies fit the requirements and are good family fare.