It may be that the restorationist is able, like Pygmalion, through divine agency and fervent affection, to bring to life the dream of the world he made. Yet such affection belies his original hatred of the world, where, had it been complete, there should never have been the natal dream that awakened him to hope. Perhaps a labor of such intensity can come from hate. After all, the devil is no idler. But from such hatred never proceeds the faith to kiss and to caress, to animate what could only ever be silent stone. Hope is the great master emotion of the West, whereas of the East it is quiescence, acceptance. Can there be faith absent hope? It is unlikely, for faith, absent hope, it simply knowledge, obtained by effort and craft, but never in doubt within its compass. One trusts knowledge, but only to its terminus, beyond which is abyss. But hope gives flight, to lift us beyond the limits of ourselves and our time. It is the sentiment of the spirit, of eternity, not of procedure, not of mastery, and European Man is its regent.
Unreconstructed Nation - A semi-nightly weblog by W.M. Godfrey
Until ID (or whatever science-o-rific) name it’s given chooses to abandon its ludicrous stance on population genetics, it’s going to get eviscerated by the equally ludicrous ranks of the “traditionalists” and “alt-right” who, in agreement with evolutionists believe the miraculous fable that something (everything that is) came from nothing, or the equally ludicrous mythology that everything that is, always was. That things don’t come from anywhere, they simply ARE, of course.
The article at Occam’s Razor is interesting, the article at Ars Technica not so much. The former is interesting in that it points up a critical weakness in the strategy of ID defenders. That is, because of their extra-biblical commitment to human uniformity, they end up in untenable positions, such as denying the findings of population genetics. But evolutionists themselves, like Richard Dawkins, deny the implications of human population genetics, so it mostly amounts to the same thing. Unfortunately for the evolutionist right, their rejection of creation (and of a creator) leaves them scrambling for the mostly impossible straws of their dishevelled strawmen, in attemtping to find evolutionary pathways for human behavior that has no evolutionary value. This yawning chasm in behavioral genetics has led the wilder fringe to postulate a non-competitive form of evolutionary advancement. Which seems like a theoretical deus ex machina to us, much like Punctuated Equillibrium was for the late Stephen J. Gould.
So Ars Technica lampoons the Discovery Institute for faking a lab setting for an interview saying,
“Presumably, we are meant to let the nice scientist’s words and theories wash over us in the glow of the lab she’s sitting in…”
But isn’t that precisely the effect that scientists (of the “right” sort, of course) want to have on the GP (general population)? Their white lab coats, their expensive, sterile equipment, their wheedling, effiminate, obsequeous voices. We are to look at these props and be soothed by them. We are meant to come under the mental influence of their technocratic mewlings. Thus, in the comment section of the Ars Technica article, an observant commentor writes,
“Batesian mimicry in action. If you can’t beat ‘em, resemble ‘em!”
Only, it is scientism itself that is doing the resembling: of objectivity, of non-existent neutrality, of god-like omniscience, and finally, of trustworthiness. It’s probably the lesser evil that the silly Discovery Institute faked the lab background than that evolutionists faked the bones, over, and over, and over, and over again. Er, we mean made errors. But since evolution isn’t promoted as a theory, but as a fact, it is extemely interesting to note the frequency with which total revisions must be made in order to fit the facts, or the lack of facts. As mentioned above, Punctuated Equilibrium was a hypothesis promoted by Stephen J. Gould to explain evolution’s lack of evidence. That is, the missing “fossils of failure” that macro-evolution should produce. And yet you have so-called creationists acceptance of “micro-evolution” because of their unwillingness to accept that the conservation of types on which their critique of macro-evolution is based is effected among sub-species by behavioral genetics.
But a funny thing happened on the way to scientific certainty. The fraudulent—er, erroneous—conclusions based on misidentification of bones and bone fragments were never corrected in the evolutionary narrative, and are still, today, presented as evidence. See this credulous wikipedia article for example. And when they can’t fake the bones, they simply ignore they inconvenient absence of bones.
Watch as every “conservative” institution collapses before the gay “equality mandate.” Amazing how not one of the prominent right wing talkers or scribblers sees the correlation between this form of equality and the racial equality mandate, but the logic put forward by its advocates is precisely the same—a correlation that raises the ire of “Civil Rights” advocates in the black community, for whom not all civil rights are created equal. Only the property rights absolutists among the Libertards can approach the “holy mountain” of equality by diktat with their sandals on: http://reut.rs/XL6eU9
When the state began certifying unions beyond its sphere of authority and jurisdiction, conferring benefits as a kind of social engineering, it invented the gay marriage issue, and involved the legal apparatus in a false determination. The argument from equality proffered by homosexual provocateurs was surely seen in the very rudiments of state-granted unions, which are nothing more than mock marriages for the very purpose of usurping the Church’s exclusive right to form and dissolve marriages.
It was both inevitable and predictable that the issue be framed within the context of equal protection—especially as the etiology of homosexuality is mired in politics, and the scientific community, unable to find the “gay gene” (evidence of genetic determination elevating homosexual preference to the level of race) has elected to retreat behind a wall of demagoguery. Presumably, the argument from equality is based on the possession of some distinguishing characteristic that separates one, in theory, from the majority population, but is not morally disqualifying, based on its involuntary determination. In this way, the case is made by the advocates of homosexual unions that their petition has legal standing as a matter of civil right, when in fact it supplants a religious judgment with a secular-civic one. The state cannot affix any meaningful imprimatur on marriage, which is not in its power to grant, nor can it nullify a godly union. Gay marriage is therefore an oxymoron. Marriage is possible only within a Theistic context. The state deifies itself by creating a secular analog that confers stolen privileges.
The [supposed] evils of the past (e.g., slavery) were committed against—and by—persons of the past. We can neither punish the perpetrators nor compensate the victims.Moreover, we ourselves are not these persons of the past. This seeming truism was lost on Justice Thurgood Marshall, who, in response to the condemnation of any government bias against or in favor of anyone, bellowed, ‘You guys [i.e., white people] have been practicing discrimination for years. Now it’s our [i.e., black people’s] turn.’ Again, most, if not all, of the people today, black and white, were not even alive during those past periods of injustice. But what would this racial eye-for-an-eye theory of ‘discrimination’ mean in practice? The implementation of a Jim Crow system against whites? The resurrection of involuntary servitude with whites as slaves?
“Affirmative Action, Negative Justice” by Barry Loberfeld, Front Page Magazine, September 21, 2003.
Perhaps if Mexicans stopped toting rusty lawn chairs to recycling centers for a few minutes, they could learn English, and then teach themselves a skill that an Indian will do in their stead in a couple of years, who will then be replaced by a robot in a few more.
We killed tens of thousands of American citizens – maybe hundreds of thousands – with no due process whatever in the Civil War. And it was the right thing to do. …You know, you want to discredit a movement: defend the Confederacy. Go ahead.
This is former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton, quoted from an appearance on the Stossel show. I wonder whether the Apostle Paul would have advocated genocide on behalf of Abolitionism. Somehow, I rather doubt it.
If you have read this blog much at all then you know that scripture tells us that the apostle Paul was willing to be condemned (to damnation and hell) if it meant the salvation of his “kinsmen after the flesh,” that is, his biological family or tribe. But perhaps you were unaware that this very “familist” proposal (in the words of Gary North, and now, Bojidar Marinov) was not without precedent. As it turns out, Moses, whom “conservative” exegetes refer to as a “type of Christ,” makes a very similar offer in Exodus 32:32, in pleading with God for His forgiveness of the people of Israel following the production of the Golden Calf:
[31] So Moses returned to the Lord and said, “Alas, this people has sinned a great sin. They have made for themselves gods of gold. [32] But now, if you will forgive their sin—but if not, please blot me out of your book that you have written.”
Understood correctly, Moses is unwilling to evade the condemnation of the people by God, for their sake, and in unity with them, though he was innocent of their sin of idolatry. What is more remarkable, Moses insists on this unity with sinful Israel, what God Himself refers to as “your people” in verse 7, even though God provides him with an escape:
[10] “Now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them, in order that I may make a great nation of you.”
In other words, Jehovah instructs Moses to stand aside under exemption and witness the consuming of the existing Israel, that He would bring forth out of Moses a new nation. The implication here is that this new nation would be the issue of Moses, a progeny biologically descended from Moses himself. Thus, far from there being but a single example of holy love for the natural family and the extended family of kinship, we are given its very type, its spiritual ancestor in Moses himself.
The trail of Kinism through the scripture is lengthy and impressive, and I hope to reveal it through a series of blog posts in the coming months.
“Male supremacism on the Pauline model is necessary for civilization, since it gives men ability and motive to invest in posterity, necessary for society, because children need fathers, and is the only political tactic capable of achieving the rollback of the feminist imperative that Men’s Rights Activists want.”
In the wake of the Fiscal Cliff kerfuffle it seems appropriate to discuss the nature of the much ballyhooed capitalism that is supposedly the prevailing economic system of the United States, an assertion that is highly debatable. But for the sake of argument, let’s presume that this is the case. Every historical example of “capitalism” we have seen thus far seems to have presupposed the operation of a central bank, to ensure the flow of credit (as lender of last resort) when credit would naturally falter and fail. Hayek admitted this, made theoretical provision for it, and the result was his disciple Hoppe’s ideological parricide on the basis of Hayek’s crypto-socialism. Markets that are only operative under this presumptive condition are not “free,” rather they are planned. Characteristically, Republican and Democrat references to “free market capitalism” actually indicate something akin to a status quo economics, albeit with lower corporate and individual tax rates. The Democrats, being unabashed Keynesians, are rather forthcoming concerning their commitment to all manner of interventions, more especially those driven by ideology. Republicans are Keynesians without enthusiasm, repentant economic sinners. It is not coincidental that the vast majority of Republicans with Public Religion (PR) are either Baptists or Catholics (the few Mormons notwithstanding). A conservative Presbyterian would be verbally committed (at least) to even the moon-baying lunacies of Really Free Markets (which means Really Non-existent Borders). Further, even were it a free market, a market that is perfectly free is one free of rules, which ignores the economic implications of a biblical exegesis. My opinion is that Wilhelm Röpke (who, as far as I know, and despite his prominence as an Austrian School economist, has never been mentioned in any of Gary North’s writings on biblical economics) made the essential dissociation between market economies and so-called capitalism. Capitalism is one TYPE of market economy among several. It is not cognate with the market economy. The identification of capitalism with market economics is spurious, and intentionally designed to drown with silence all alternative formulations.
Speaking of drowning with silence, Wilhelm Röpke is the least mentioned exponent of the Austrian School at libertarian organizations such as the Cato and LVM Institutes because of one simple fact: Röpke correctly theorizes that the market economy is dependent upon (rather than producing) the preexistence of certain Christian moral conditions that “free market capitalism” dismisses as oppressive or irrelevant. For Röpke it is no coincidence that the West first developed the market economy, being the incubator of Christianity, and that it has arisen spontaneously nowhere else. This is a kind of Western “nativism” and “moralism” that the open borders universalists and social liberals of laissez faire proscribe. And yet, because of the power of Röpke’s ideas, the LVM Institute published a festschrift to him to cover its tracks, knowing well that Mises was an ardent critic of Röpke’s moral foundations theory, and his critique of capitalist “enmassment” (or concentration of economic power). Republicans are quick to hail small business because such rhetoric appeals to Middle America, and yet espouse an economic theory that enshrines “economies of scale” as the hallmark of the free market. In reality, they are hallmarks of corporatism and economic central planning, without which industry of such scale could not and would not exist. Röpke was the first explicit economist of the small not affiliated with Chesterton and Catholic Distributism, presaging such figures as E.F. Schumacher, and now that Big, Inc. seems to have failed us somehow, his ideas are more urgently in need of exhumation.
