If for any reason you cannot find the paperback version of Playing the Indian Card at your favourite bookstore or online retailer, please ask them to carry it. Protest and picket the store entrance if necessary.
Catherine O’Hara has died. This is sad for her many fans. But I am offended by the media inevitably referring to this as her “tragic death.”
We all die. Death ends every life. If every death is tragic, every life ends in tragedy. Do we really believe that? Is our vision so narrow?
O’Hara lived to the age of 71: that is a full life, the Biblically alotted threescore and ten. Although we may have become accustomed to people living longer, it is enough. In historical or international terms, it is already an accomplishment to have lived that long.
O’Hara bore and raised two children. That’s a good return on investment: given one life, she produced two more. That is already a great legacy.
She died, according to her agent, “after a brief illness.” It sounds as though she did not go through prolonged suffering. Given that we all need to go, that’s the best way to go. A good death.
And although she did do well, and became famous, Catherine O’Hara spent her life not just trying to make money and acquire things, but in the arts, using the gifts God gave her to the fullest to bring light into other lives. She let her light shine, as we are told to do by our Lord. She stayed salty; she did not lose her savor to the last. She died in harness, still acting, singing, and performing.
Given her talents, we can assume life was not easy for her. It is not easy for most of us; it is the vale of soul-making. Beauty in the arts comes only through pain. Why would she want to linger, if something infinitely better was waiting for her?
It is perverse, profane, and disrespectful to her memory to call this a tragedy.
I recently attended another “Life in the Spirit” session put on by my local Catholic diocese. It was all about forgiveness: the need to forgive yourself and others.
I fear this is to put the cart before the horse. You can’t have one without the other, and the import of the session and the course seems to be that you can.
Notice the progression in the New Testament: first John the Baptist, then Jesus. First repentance, then salvation. One must make the ways straight for the Lord.
“In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea and saying, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.’”
In the session I attended, forgiveness was claimed to heal illness—not just your “mental health,” either. One story was of a woman who, once she forgave her neighbour, was cured of a goiter within a week. And it was of course claimed to improve your relationships.
This is selling it for other than religious reasons. This is selling it as psychology, as worldly wisdom. A Christian as Christian is supposed to do things because they are right, and out of love of God, not because they are good for our health or our finances. Why this approach?
I think they are doing this because the idea of forgiveness without repentance cannot be justified philosophically or theologically. It violates our sense of natural justice, which is to say of the Good. And God is perfect Good, Truth, and Beauty. So you cannot sell it as righteous, as the morally right thing.
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness” – says Jesus in the Beatitudes. This hunger is incompatible with unconditional forgiveness.
The speaker of course had his Biblical references. But they were partial, and misleadingi.
Their killer claim was that Jesus forgave his own killers from the cross—as they were killing him. How’s that for unconditional forgiveness?
But they are ignoring the second half of that sentence: “Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do.” This condition implies that their actions are objectively unforgivable. They are excused by ignorance. This is the principle used to test for a mortal sin.
"Mortal sin is sin whose object is grave matter and which is also committed with full knowledge and deliberate consent." - CCC
To be guilty of the sin, you must be aware of the significance of what you are doing. In the case of the crucifixion, the soldiers were just doing their job, and presumably did not know he was an innocent man, much less that he was God incarnate.
The second Biblical warrant cited for forgiveness without repentance was the parable of the unmerciful servant, Matthew 18:21-35. Forgiven a debt by his master, he will not forgive a debt owed to him.
But they omit his repentance:
“His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay it back.’”
Imagine the debtor had denied the debt. Doesn’t that make a difference?
Forgiveness, as such, is not the Christian message. Jesus is not forgiving of the Pharisees, scribes, or Sadducees.
“You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce fruit in keeping with repentance.”
He is not forgiving of the moneychangers at the temple. John the Baptist is not forgiving of Herod Antipas; and Jesus fully endorses John the Baptist.
To understand the injustice of this doctrine of forgiveness without repentance, imagine your government is exterminating Jews. Are you obliged to quietly forgive? How about if you are Jewish? That is a way to stay healthy and safe, but it is not the moral way.
Imagine your community is practicing slavery. Forgive and do nothing?
Imagine Kitty Genovese is being raped and murdered in your stairwell. Forgive and do nothing?
No—beyond a right and duty of self-defense, you have a right to fight evil when you see it around you. “None so guilty as the innocent bystander.” Consider the saintly models of St. Michael, St. George, or St. Joan of Arc.
When nothing can be done, when the evil is beyond our power to end, the proper attitude is not forgiveness, but resignation. To turn the other cheek. “Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.” We try to shame the perpetrator, let go and let God, and try to get on with our lives.
When the guilty party admits their guilt and tries to make good, then we must forgive.
“If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector.”
Witness the sacrament of Reconciliation: to be forgiven by God himself, we must be sincerely sorry, resolve not to commit the same sin again, and must accept some penance. This is God’s way, and he models it to be our way.
And what is not repaid by penance in this life, must be made up in Purgatory.
It is not a mercy to forgive someone their sin who has not sincerely repented. For to do so is to encourage him in his sin, and lead him on the path to Hell. We owe him the duty of fraternal correction.
Vice is an addiction, like alcohol. The more often you do it, the easier it gets to override your conscience. And affirmation by others does not help.
My own uncle was an alcoholic. His father, my grandfather, was exceptionally mild-mannered, and just put up with it. And, owning a company, he kept his errant son on the payroll so he would not be destitute. He was a model of forgiveness.
Then my grandfather died. My father inherited the company. He fired his older brother.
My uncle told me he is eternally grateful to my father for this.
There he was, alone in his apartment, with the rent due in two weeks, and no way to pay it. In his desperation, he reached for a book his mother had given him, on St. Luke the Evangelist. He began to read. Through the strength of God, he sobered up, and has remained sober since.
It was cruel to have kept forgiving him for such a long time.
The real motivation for this false gospel is always brought up last. Because, after all, it is shameful. It is the supposed need to forgive “even yourself.”
This is paydirt. Jesus has already paid for all my sins. He loves me unconditionally. Why would I need to change? If anyone points out my sins—they are the bad ones. I can just keep punching my brother in the face, keep swindling him, and that’s all right. If he complains—shame on him. He is failing in his duty to forgive.
We are living through an interesting time. Things are happening almost too quickly to follow. And it’s a three-ring circus.
Something is clearly happening in China. Reports of large military movements; the usual internet censorship seems to have sprouted holes; emergency measures are clearly in place.
It seems likely that we are in the middle of a conflict splitting the CCP, which may become a civil war or the collapse of the regime. China is historically difficult to hold together, and always capable of collapsing into chaos.
In Iran, we are waiting for another shoe to fall. Latest reports I hear are of a mob storming the ayatollah’s residence. Trump said he had the back of the protesters. He said he would strike if the regime resorted to violence. Reports now are of 30,000 dead. It seems to me Trump must strike Iran now, and must strike decisively. His credibility is on the line.
Consider now the domino effect typical of revolutionary periods. Reports are there was a shortage of noodles in Chinese markets the day after Maduro was captured in Venezuela. One dines on noodles in celebration in China, like champagne or a birthday cake.
Now imagine the effect on the other if either the Iranian or the Chinese regime falls.
And there are other obvious dominos. Putin is in a terrible fix in Ukraine, losing more men than were lost by Russia in Afghanistan, a conflict that arguably caused the collapse of the Soviet Union. It seems improbable that he can stay in power much longer. And he has been dependant on Chinese and Iranian support. He has already lost Assad and Syria.
Cuba was in dire straits economically before Trump’s coup in Venezuela, and heavily dependent on Venezuelan oil and cash. Now that is gone. Without Venezuelan, Russian, or Chinese support, they are there for the taking.
I can imagine the regimes in Iran, China, Russia, and Cuba all falling over the next year or so. Hard to see North Korea and Belarus holding on. It would be a different world; like the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Trump would look brilliant, the great hero. Parties in the democratic world who espouse Trumpish policies would accordingly get another big boost. Farage in the UK, LePen in France, Poilievre in Canada, Wilders in the Netherlands, AfD in Germany, and so on. Each would probably win the next election decisively, and introduce new policies accordingly. In the Middle East, radical Islam would be dead, and there would be a strong impulse to sign on to the Abraham accords.
Meantime, Elon Musk is predicting a great burst of increased productivity due to AI, leading to an unprecedented increase in general wealth; and he is speaking of the near term.
We could be seeing the birth pangs of a golden age.
A friend is a fan of the late Pope Francis and his synodal way. He supports the suppression of the Latin mass. This has never made any sense to me. Why is it a problem, when it was the traditional form of the liturgy for hundreds of years, and dozens of other non-standard liturgies are well-established.
It is, my friend says, because it causes schism in the Church.
This makes no sense to me. If one group is continuing to do as they always did—traditionalists, by definition—and another group is starting to do something different, surely it is the innovators who are promoting schism?
And how can a difference in liturgy matter? If there is some theological or doctrinal conflict, surely the proper approach is to address that doctrine, not the liturgy.
The problem, he elucidates, is that traditionalism opposes the charismatic movement within the Church.
For those who do not know, the “charismatic movement” is a movement to Pentecostal forms of worship within the Catholic church. Lots of singing and laying on of hands, perhaps speaking in tongues. The idea is to evoke the presence of the Holy Spirit. A more free-form style of worship.
This supposed conflict comes as news to me. I have always considered myself both a traditionalist and a charismatic. I love charismatic forms of worship. But again, surelty different liturgical forms can coexist within the Catholic Church, as they always have. Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict both endorsed charismatic prayer, and they are traditionalist heroes. Traditionalism opposes modernism, surely, falling away or turning away from traditional doctrine, not pentecostalism.
But wait... The charismatic movement emphasizes the ongoing action of the Holy Spirit. Francis’s synodality movement is about groups supposedly listening to the Holy Spirit—and then discussing doctrine.
So this looks like a jump from pentecostalism as a style of worship to something else, something deeper.
Of course, to a traditionalist, this too should be no problem. It is the Holy Spirit who has spoken through the prophets, through the Bible, and through the apostles, to bring us to where we are today. Obviously, the Holy Spirit is not going to suddenly contradict itself.
The problem is, however, unlike the Bible or the established magisterium, anyone can claim, falsely, to be guided by the Holy Spirit to propose anything he might want. This has been, historically, the case. The Holy Spirit has told some they had the right to take multiple wives, or to overthrow the government of China, or to kill themselves by drinking poisoned Kool-ade. And the Bible warns us of this danger—that there will be false prophets. This is why private revelation has never been allowed to supersede the magisterium. If something proposed goes against the established teaching, that proves it is the demonic voices speaking, not the Holy Spirit. This is how you “test the spirits.”
So far so good—but if this is your position, what is the possible point of holding these synods? As nothing can change, they are a waste of time.
Cardinal Zen made this point at the recent consistory of bishops in Rome: “the continual reference to the Holy Spirit is ridiculous and almost blasphemous. They expect surprises from the Holy Spirit; what surprises? That He should repudiate what He inspired in the Church’s two-thousand-year Tradition?”
In other words, it seems “the synodal way” is an attempt, through the alibi of the charismatic renewal, to smuggle in changes in church doctrine. And when “charismatic renewal” is understood in this sense, it is indeed opposed to traditionalism, and traditionalism must be opposed to it.
If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you, If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too; If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies, Or being hated, don’t give way to hating, And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise: If you can dream—and not make dreams your master; If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim; If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two impostors just the same; If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools: If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, And lose, and start again at your beginnings And never breathe a word about your loss; If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew To serve your turn long after they are gone, And so hold on when there is nothing in you Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’ If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch, If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, If all men count with you, but none too much; If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run, Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it, And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!
Some years ago, Rudyard Kipling’s poem “If” was voted the most popular poem in England. Muhammed Ali reputedly carried it with him wherever he went.
It is framed as a father’s advice to his son—as Kipling’s advice to his own son John.
It has always seemed to me, frankly, abusive.
For example, right off,
“If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too;”
Right—so you must trust yourself, yet doubt yourself.
“And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:” Be good, but not too good; smart, but not too smart?
This kind of moral ambiguity seems to me to be the essence of abusive parenting: setting requirements the child cannot possibly achieve. It is not just that the bar is ridiculously high: it is that the child is here asked to do two contradictory things. This means they can never feel they have got it right, and they remain open to criticism by the parent whenever the mood strikes.
“If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, If all men count with you, but none too much”
This is surely terrible life advice. In order to form a true and loving bond with anyone, you must be ready to be vulnerable. You must expose yourself to being hurt. You must give your heart fully. This is a recipe for a lonely, isolated life.
But this is the advice you would expect from an abusive parent or partner: don’t ever get too close to anyone but me. I want total control. I don’t want you to escape my clutches.
It is typical of a narcissistic parent to discourage deep relationships outside the family. It is typical of an abusive partner to object to your spending too much time with friends.
The penultimate promise with which the poem almost ends, “yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it” is also troubling. It implies that the objective of life is power, not to be a good person. This is the narcissist’s view.
And by implication, the parent who is speaking is already a god, for presumably he already is a man. So this is his world and everything that’s in it—and, this being so, there is no room for some second ruler, at least until he dies. The poor kid has no chance.
John Kipling, to whom this poem was addressed, died early in the First World War. He was only sixteen; there was no conscription; and his poor eyesight made him ineligible for service. Nevertheless, his father Rudyard was determined that he must go to war, and pulled strings to make it happen. He died charging a German position in the Battle of Loos.
His father composed this epitaph for him: “If any question why we died, Tell them, because our fathers lied.”
I take this as an admission of guilt—although slightly deflected by use of the plural.
“The world needs a boss. Then fewer countries would start wars.”
And he’s right. He is being logical. This is the same reason we have governments.
It is moreover the lesson of history: Pax Romana, Pax Britannica. When Rome ruled the Mediterranean, there was general peace, prosperity, and development. When the United Kingdom dominated the globe in the nineteenth century, we had a long period of relative peace. As Yeats described it in "Nineteen Hundred and Nineteen":
All teeth were drawn, all ancient tricks unlearned, And a great army but a showy thing…
One dominant power preserves the peace. Government is always better than anarchy.
This being so, America’s continued and growing dominance is in the best interests of everyone. Especially since America is a democracy, and guarantees democracy to territories it controls. This means suppression and exploitation is not on the menu. Its dominance is not just in the best interests of America’s usual allies in Canada, Europe, Australia, Israel, the Pacific Rim. It is also in the best interests of the people of Iran, or Russia, or China.
hy then do the governments of Iran, China, or Russia stand opposed to the USA? Why are hackles raised in Europe or in Canada? Why are leaders like Mark Carney actually turning to China for closer ties?
It must be just the ugly sin of envy. If they cannot themselves be the leader, they want to burn it all down. It is weasels fighting in a hole. It is crabs preventing one another from escaping the boiling pot.
In fact, the ideal would be if America conquered and annexed everyone. Then everyone would have a vote on US policy, creating a democratic world government.
The craziest thing is that Greenland, and Canada, have been offered advance membership, and somehow seem put out by it.
I recently attended a “Life in the Spirit” —Catholic charismatic—talk. It troubled me; I think it got a critical matter wrong. I fear the speaker misrepresented the scriptures.
His main claim was that, if you accept Jesus as your personal saviour, all your sins are forgiven. You will not be blamed or called to account for your sins.
“Thanks to the death of Jesus, we also die to sin, because a dead person cannot be blamed for any of his past errors.”
To illustrate, the speaker refers to Cortez burning his ships so his soldiers could not retreat from the conquest of Mexico. Once you accept Jesus, there is just no turning back to sin.
Really? Why then does Paul tell the Philippians to “continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling.” What is the fear? Why the trembling?
According to this new happy happy joy joy version of Catholicism, Jesus’s love is unconditional. So all we need to do is recognize his love, and all is well between us.
But this is contradictory: it seems his love is indeed still conditional, if there is a need for us to recognize it. That is a condition. But does it seem a fair and just condition, worthy of a just and merciful God, to make that the test? We get to heaven just by feeling good about ourselves? And if we instead feel bad about ourselves, we ought to go to hell as punishment?
The speaker does cite scripture. I quote:
“And there is no longer any condemnation for me, that I am in Christ Jesus. This is marvelous. And I don't say it; Paul says it in the epistle to the Romans.”
That is, Romans 8:1: “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”
But what does it mean to be “in Christ Jesus”? The speaker would have it that this means accepting Jesus as your saviour. This is not self-evidently so. It might mean taking on the spirit of Jesus, thinking and behaving as Jesus does and did, and as he commands us. And we avoid condemnation only so long as we can remain in this frame of mind.
Seeming to bear out this latter interpretation, further on in the same passage of Philippians, Paul says those who live in Christ Jesus “do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.” “Those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires.” “If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ.”
So it seems to me the speaker in this talk is misrepresenting scripture.
The speaker goes on to give three examples from the Gospels of sinners who had their sins forgiven. But each time, he falsifies the passage in a critical way: he leaves out the need for repentance.
First is the woman taken in adultery, John 8; ‘let he who is without sin cast the first stone.” When no one else will stone her, Jesus sends her off with the command, “go and sin no more.”
The speaker takes this to mean she has been given the power never to sin.
“When she was found out, she knew that the only door open to her was the door of being stoned. But she met Jesus, who is the saving door. … What she needed most was peace. Peace with herself, peace with her accusers, peace in this world…. But now, with his forgiveness, she will be able to overcome sin, and she will do so in peace.”
What she needed, then, was to stop feeling guilty about her sin.
But the gospel says nothing about her inner thoughts, about her needing or finding peace. The one clear indication of her inner thoughts is that, when all her accusers fade away, she remains standing there. Jesus is looking away, at the ground. She refuses to take the obvious opportunity to escape death. She insists on facing judgement, and consents that she deserves death. Only then is she forgiven.
“Teacher,” they said to Jesus, “this woman was caught in the act of adultery. 5 The law of Moses says to stone her. What do you say?”
6 They were trying to trap him into saying something they could use against him, but Jesus stooped down and wrote in the dust with his finger. 7 They kept demanding an answer, so he stood up again and said, “All right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!” 8 Then he stooped down again and wrote in the dust.
9 When the accusers heard this, they slipped away one by one, beginning with the oldest, until only Jesus was left in the middle of the crowd with the woman. 10 Then Jesus stood up again and said to the woman, “Where are your accusers? Didn’t even one of them condemn you?”
11 “No, Lord,” she said.
And Jesus said, “Neither do I. Go and sin no more.”
It is not that she found peace, but that she accepted guilt and found remorse.
Zaccheus is our speaker’s second example: the tax collector who climbed a sycamore tree to get a glimpse of Jesus passing by.
“This man, Zacchaeus,” our interlocutor explains, “regained peace with himself. And not only with himself, the whole family of Zacchaeus, because it says that he [Jesus] ‘entered this house, this family.’ Such was the salvation given by Jesus to Zacchaeus.”
Once again, this false teacher omits the critical detail that Zaccheus repents of his sins—and also offers full restitution and more. “But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, ‘Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.’”
Our false teacher’s third example is The Good Thief. Quoting again: “He is one of the few who call Jesus by name, the thief is very confident and says to him, ‘You are Jesus, which means: you are the Savior, the salvation of God for this world, for me. And I do not ask much of you, I ask only that you remember me when you are in your kingdom, because I know that you are King, I know that crown of thorns is your glory. I know that that cross is your throne. Remember me now when you die, for I know that you have only a few minutes to live. But you are going to sit on the eternal throne of David. So, remember me."
But this is mostly invention.
The actual passage:
“38 There was a written notice above him, which read: this is the king of the jews.
39 One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: ‘Aren’t you the Messiah? Save yourself and us!’
40 But the other criminal rebuked him. ‘Don’t you fear God,’ he said, ‘since you are under the same sentence? 41 We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.’
42 Then he said, ‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.’”
It is not heroic to call someone by their name. Nor is it a striking act of faith for the thief to acknowledge Jesus as king and messiah. That might just as well be mockery. If not, it looks like Pascal’s wager: you never know, and what did the thief have to lose?
But the striking thing is that the thief acknowledges that his sins deserve crucifixion. That is heroic. Not only that— he rebukes the other thief for asking for rescue, because his punishment is just. He will not ask to be saved from punishment; he wants justice.
This is how God combines perfect justice with perfect mercy; only when we are prepared to accept the full measure of punishment can we be forgiven.
For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it.
News is that the Canadian military has drawn up plans for war with the US. And their conclusion? “Canada would be defeated in two days or less and they hope Canadians would organize into counterinsurgency guerrilla groups.”
That’s about what I calculate. Quick tank run over flat terrain to take Winnipeg. Canada is cut in two. Quick tank run over flat terrain to take Vancouver. Canada is cut off from the Pacific. Now send tanks through the broad flat plains of Alberta and Saskatchewan to secure the oilfields and the North. If Eastern Canada is worth the effort, another quick run up the Richelieu to take Montreal cuts the remainder of Canada in two once again. Hook left to take Ottawa. Canada does not have the vast distances of Russia to buffer an invasion from the South. Easily all over in two days.
Would Canadians launch guerilla warfare? The thought seems laughable to me.
Everyone is getting excited and upset about Trump demanding Greenland. I cannot get excited. If he invades, it is a violation of international law. That would be a bad thing. But if he buys Greenland, I cannot see the harm. It would be good for Greenlanders.
And I think he has a case. Greenland is strategic. And everyone thinks it is right for the US and US taxpayers to carry the freight of defending it, while not benefitting from the territory.
“Blessed are the peacemakers,” runs one of the Beatitudes.
But who are the peacemakers?
One naturally thinks of the Nobel Peace Prize. It is given for making peace, right?
Officially, it is given “to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.”
It is dubious that the reduction of standing armies leads to peace. That was a dream of the 1920s—and arguably, World War II was the result. Disarmament is an invitation to invasion.
The logic is akin to the logic of defunding the police.
“The holding and promotion of peace congresses.” Here too we have a problem. Often enough, indeed almost inevitably, the same guys who started the war sign the peace. Yasser Arafat and Menachim Begin are previous laureates: both arguably terrorists.
Among recent laurates were Barack Obama, "for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples." Which seem invisible to many not on the Nobel committee. And Al Gore, "for efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change.” Whether or not you worry about climate change, what does this have to do with peace? Why not, in this vein, a Peace Prize for campaigning against tooth decay?
People do not seem to have a clear idea of how one makes peace. Perhaps people do not have a clear idea of what peace means.
St. Augustine defines peace properly. Peace is “the tranquility of order.” Peace comes with all things in their proper place, with clear lines, rules, and boundaries: passing on the right, stopping on red. No left turn. One can imagine if no one knew or kept such rules.
Peacemakers are those who establish clear boundaries, advocate for clear boundaries, and administer and enforce them consistently. Those who respect the rules.
The lawgivers, the peace officers, the justices of the peace. The honest referees.
The inclination of our postmodern world is instead to obscure all boundaries: the roles of husband and wife, of men and women; the distinction between male and female; the significance of borders; the distinction between citizen and non-citizen; the distinction between beauty and ugliness; between truth and opinion; even between right and wrong.
“Being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art. Making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art.” – Andy Warhol
Everybody except Andy Warhol seems to have missed this obvious fact: entrepreneurship is a form of art. An entrepreneur is a creator; perhaps the most creative of all artists. He works on the biggest canvas: the world.
I see it every day. Many small local businesses are expressions of an artistic soul.
No, they are not designed to maximize profits. They are designed to make enough money to permit them to exist, in all their beautiful eccentricity. To express their owner’s vision: of what a cocktail should be, of the timeless traditions of the barber shop, of the beauty of old books and magazines.
It is ignorant to suppose that business is about greed. It is about “busy-ness,” that is, making things, getting things done. It is about the work, the craft, the opus, the essay. It is the joy of inventing a work of art that is self-perpetuating, that can live and run.
When asked why he kept creating new businesses, local magnate K.C. Irving responded plainly: “I like to see gears turning.”
Money is just what makes the next thing possible, the artist’s brush, the writer’s pen
And it is grossly ungrateful not to see how much great entrepreneurs have contributed to American culture. What would America be today without P.T. Barnum? Without Henry Ford? Without Steve Jobs? Without Walt Disney? Without Elon Musk?
The great accomplishment of American culture is the entrepreneur and his art.
We are now seeing, I believe for the first time since Washington and Jefferson, an entrepreneur in the Oval Office. And it feels as though America is coming into its own.
Here’s an interesting anomaly of human nature. People everywhere want to emigrate to the USA. Many will risk their lives to get there, in open boats, or over barbed wire, or trusting themselves to cartels and coyotes; to get that precious green card. And yet, when Donald Trump offers union to Greenland, or to Canada, the locals act insulted and truculent. They even threaten to shoot. This does not make sense.
By joining the USA, Canadians, for example, individual would have many more career opportunities. They could expect a higher standard of living. They would have more choices where to live. Apart from Quebec, they risk losing nothing of their culture—by any normal world standard, it is the same culture. They would sacrifice nothing of their freedoms or right to self-govern. America has the same democratic traditions. Indeed, they would probably have better protection for their rights, a more independent judiciary and a longer and stronger human rights tradition. Canada, after all, only got responsible government in the 1840s, and a formal Bill of Rights only in 1960. The courts’ interpretations of the current Charter of Rights and Freedoms has grown problematic. They—we-- would also have greater security against foreign threats from genuinely oppressive governments.
And yet Mark Carney is hurrying off to China, America’s chief adversary, to cut deals that seem not in Canada’s interest, in hopes of countering American influence. Or perhaps just to spite the USA.
This behaviour seems mad and self-destructive.
I think it shows the strength of the nationalist instinct, and how it works against our interests. People are herd animals, if they follow their instincts. But the gospel truth is that all men are brothers. Even Samaritans. Even Americans.
Appealing to this idolatry of nationalism has let many a corrupt and oppressive government seize and stay in power.
You might, of course, accuse Trump in turn of being a nationalist, in wanting to annex Canada or Greenland. But that is a separate argument, and an argument for others to consider.
Iran right now is hell. To keep our hopes up, let’s try to focus on the good things that might come if the regime does fall. For it might very well fall. Trump is honour bound to do his best to bring it down. The darkest hour is just before dawn.
The fall of the Islamist regime could usher in an era of peace across the Middle East. Iran has been subsidizing insurrectionist groups like the Houthis, Hamas, Hezbollah, and more. Without this support, they may evaporate. I think of the effect on the troubles in Northern Ireland when Libya’s Ghaddafi withdrew support. The Abraham Accords show a desire to bury that hatchet in some important quarters.
Iran might become an ally of Israel again, as it was under the Shah— the Iranians might well be grateful for Israel’s help in overthrowing the Islamist regime. And they could flip from being a sworn enemy of the US to being a strategic regional ally—in Russia’s underbelly.
Russia will have lost a major ally and supplier of weapons for the current war in Ukraine. That might tip the balance.
The example of regime overthrow might also inspire Russians to overthrow Putin as well. Or the Chinese might try to take out Xi.
Along with Venezuela, and domestic supplies, Iran will give the US strong influence in the world oil market. They might be able to use this to exert pressure on China.
Iran might now develop into a prosperous and innovative nation. Under the Shah, they were on a par with Spain. There is a well-educated population, and history gives us many examples of nations that developed quickly after a period of turmoil; the Netherlands gaining independence from Spain, Spain of the Reconquista, Poland after the Berlin Wall fell. Postwar Germany or Japan. Iran’s expertise with drones shows a bit of what they are capable of.
Rumours are that a large proportion of Iranians are secret Christians. This seems plausible. Iran was not that devout before 1979—there was a move under the Shah to promote Zoroastrianism over Islam. The rule of the mullahs might now have broadly discredited Islam in the popular mind. It would be a glorious thing, from my Christian perspective, to see the revival this might become, once the lid is off, perhaps inspiring revivals elsewhere.
It seems likely that the fall of the Islamic Republic will largely discredit the modern ideology of political Islam and global jihad everywhere. The experiment has been tried; it failed.
I recently attended a “Life in the Spirit” seminar; a program given by the Catholic Church to deepen one’s faith. These were almost the first words of the introductory video:
“Do you know the most fulfilled people in life are not those who have everything, are not those who are successful, not even those who have purpose. But the most fulfilled people in life, the most fulfilled you could ever be, is if you're able to stop and let God love you. It is the hardest thing for us to do as human beings, to let God love us, for several reasons. Why? Because we're so used to giving to others, we're so used to serving others, we're so used to pointing towards others, that we don't stop and realize that first we need to be loved.”
My immediate reaction is, no, Hell no. This is the disease that is killing us. This is Satan speaking.
Most of us think too much of ourselves. Most of us are too sure we are going to heaven. Most of us are fully aware of our need to be loved. Most of us need to learn humility.
God loves us; but he expects things from us. We are not his pampered pets. The Gospels do not tell us to lie back and accept God’s love: they tall us to “work out our salvation in fear and trembling.” They tell us we have a purpose, and we are here to do God’s work. We are to put on a yoke. "My yoke is light."
Jesus did not go around telling people to accept God’s love. He spoke instead of our duty to love God: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” And after that to love and to help your neighbour. This is the opposite of what the video was saying.
Imagine someone about to marry. Would your advice be, “the hardest thing in marriage is to accept your wife’s love. Don’t do anything for her. Just be still and enjoy the love.”
No. Hell no. This video is preaching narcissism, not Christianity.
I guess I’m one of those neocons everyone objects to these days, on the left and on the right. A “war pig.”
Two words: Kitty Genovese.
Kitty Genovese was raped and murdered in an apartment stairwell. None of her neighbours did anything. Nobody called the cops. After all, it was not their business.
Who believes they were in the right?
Evil occurring anywhere in the world is always our business. All men are brothers. If we are aware of evil happening, as in Iran, and we are realistically able to do so, we have a moral obligation to step in and prevent it. “None so guilty as the innocent bystander.” “All that is necessary for evil to triumph is that good men do nothing.”
Pacifism, to my mind, is cowardice and selfishness masquerading as virtue.
Left-wingers think right-wingers are evil. Right-wingers think left-wingers are stupid. This is why right-wingers always want more discussion and debate, and left-wingers just want to shoot.
Here is a classic example of left-wing stupidity: their conviction that more power must be put in the hands of government to protect us from big corporations and “the billionaires,” because capitalists and corporations are “greedy.” Yet if they are greedy, why are they greedy? Because greed is a common human fault. That being so, civil servants in government are equally likely to be greedy; so nothing is accomplished thereby. It’s pirates robbing pirates. The left seems blind to this; nor can they conceive of members of the professions, the “experts,” being greedy.
Recent scandals surely make it obvious that greed is indeed common among government officials and professionals. But the free market system and open competition make greed in the private sector self-defeating: you get too greedy, you lose market share; you go out of business. There are no such checks on greed among the professions or in government officials—except superiors or colleagues who are equally likely to be greedy.
It is an amazing feat of stupidity that the left has never figured this out.
Many on the right have called for the defunding of the CBC. It is, after all, a propaganda arm of the government; is that proper in a democracy? Is it fair to ask everyone to pay for something many will not watch? And it competes unfairly with private channels and YouTubers.
I don’t think it is wrong to have a propaganda arm of the government. There is a place for public education. It is more that as the CBC exists now, its purpose is unclear and its mission muddled.
Rather than defund, I’d make it more purely and unambiguously propaganda.
It is a legitimate job of government to promote a sense of Canadian unity and Canadian identity. And Canada needs this urgently. Canadian identity and unity are tenuous at best, being a bilingual country, close to another much larger and culturally similar country, geographically very widely scattered, and, due to catastrophic recent government policies, full of recent immigrants who have been encouraged not to assimilate.
We have a problem here, and a properly directed CBC can be a part of the solution.
There should be no programs on CBC produced in other countries. Leave that to the free market. Nor should the focus be entertainment. Leave that to the free market. As a propaganda arm, it should be one long advertisement for Canada, and an education for immigrants on Canadian culture.
Shows on classic, traditional, and new Canadian books, movies, music, art. Shows on traditional Canadian foods and how to prepare them. Shows on Canadian history, always in a positive light. Shows on Canadian civics: how parliament works, how elections work, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Canadian law and legal traditions; how the court system works. Stories of Canadian inventors and inventions; of important Canadian industries. How is Canadian whisky made? How is Oka cheese made? How are trees turned into paper? Shows on Canadian folk traditions, traditional celebrations, traditional sports and games. Canadian accents, Canadian vocabulary and idioms. Travelogues on different parts of Canada.
Celebrate this country. Inspire immigrants to love it and to integrate.
Nor would this be all that costly, in this era when an individual can run their own broadcast channel on the Internet. And putting this up on the Internet makes it accessible not just in every corner of Canada, but globally.
It is, after all, to Canada’s advantage to promote the Canadian brand abroad. This is good for our economy, and generates soft power.
I’d argue that value are values. To call them “Western values” is to concede too much, and tacitly accept cultural relativism. The West must proudly and unequivocally defend values. A society or culture without values cannot function. Nor can an individual.
We have clear statements of values we can refer to: the US Bill of Rights, the US Declaration of Independence, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Magna Carta, common law, the Ten Commandments, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the Gospel.
It should be the business of the government and the education system to promote and inculcate these values.
2.𝐂𝐮𝐥𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐚𝐥 𝐫𝐞𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐢𝐬𝐦 𝐦𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐛𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐣𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐝.
If everything is relative, nothing means anything or has any genuine value. All actions are licit: there is nothing really wrong, say, with murder. Morality and truth are not culturally conditioned; that is the fascist order. A bridge designed by English engineers will not collapse because it is put up in India. Culture is a tool; it is not a god.
The concept of group rights is inherently prejudiced, discriminatory. It is incompatible with the concept of human equality and human dignity. Culture belongs to people, and to all people; people do not belong to their culture. One man is not responsible for the acts of another. We must abolish all forms of “affirmative action” -- and aboriginal status.
4.𝐀𝐥𝐥 𝐜𝐮𝐥𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐞𝐪𝐮𝐚𝐥.
A culture is a set of tools, a technology for a good life. History or travel shows us that some cultures work better, produce a better life. This should not be surprising—just as a pneumatic drill is more efficient than a stone axe for breaking up concrete. When we find a particular tool or culture or cultural element superior to another, it is both stupid and prejudiced not to appropriate it or assimilate to it.
This would always have been obvious to anyone who had done a serious study of comparative religion. Unfortunately, our secular leaders have generally been ignorant of religions. “Western” values and “Western” culture are based on the Bible and the Christian tradition. “Western culture” ere is really a secularist euphemism for “Christendom.” Other belief systems will be more or less compatible, to the degree that they diverge from Christianity.
This should be a consideration for immigration policy. Specifically, Islam is not compatible with liberal democracy—it is a competing ideological an governmental system. There is a reason why almost no Muslim countries are democracies.
6.𝐍𝐨𝐭 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐢𝐦𝐦𝐢𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐞𝐪𝐮𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞𝐥𝐲 𝐭𝐨 𝐚𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐦𝐢𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞. And assimilation is 𝐚 𝐫𝐞𝐪𝐮𝐢𝐫𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭.
Assimilation, not multiculturalism, should be promoted and funded by government. Other ethnicities have their own home countries and governments; Canada is the proper domain of Canadian culture. Canadians have nowhere else to go. It is Canadian culture that makes Canada Canada.
Nationalities should accordingly be preferred for immigration based on their record of assimilation and their cultural similarity to Canadians. How well and quickly will they be able to fit in?
Here we have a problem. Granted that we may be in a desperate situation due to reckless immigration policy in the recent past. But we cannot deport people based on their assumed beliefs. That amounts to violating Saad’s third principle, that people must be judged as individuals, not groups.
We can and should certainly deport anyone in the country illegally. And I could see it as justifiable to revoke all citizenships granted, say, in the past twenty or thirty years. These folks would then have to reapply, and could be refused if they had engaged in any criminal acts or relied on public assistance during their tenure. They could also be given a values test; although of course, they might lie on it. Future citizenships could similarly be made probationary for twenty or thirty years.
I would add to this that sane nations should prefer immigrants from cultures that have a generally favourable view of the host culture. One does not want to import enemies.
9.𝐙𝐞𝐫𝐨 𝐭𝐨𝐥𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐬𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐮𝐬 𝐛𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐞𝐟 𝐬𝐲𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐦𝐬. If an ideology constitutes an existential threat to freedom, criminalization is 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐭𝐲𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐧𝐲 — 𝐢𝐭’𝐬 𝐬𝐞𝐥𝐟-𝐝𝐞𝐟𝐞𝐧𝐬𝐞.
Here I disagree. We must not police thought nor speech. Government is not competent to do this, and cannot be trusted to do this. Freedom of thought, freedom of conscience, and freedom of speech are core values.
Beliefs with which we disagree must be argued against, not silenced. And government can actively argue against them. More on this, perhaps in a future post.
Saad is pessimistic; he does not believe this can be turned around. His judgment is tutored here by his experience in his home country, Lebanon. It was flooded by Muslim immigrants, and collapsed into civil strife. Reading between the lines, it is Islam with which he is most concerned.
He may be right; but I see public opinion moving rapidly on these issues.
It is hard to tell what really happened in the recent shooting of an anti-ICE protester in Minneapolis.
My guess is that the woman, Renee Good, did not intend to hit the police officer with her car. That seems too reckless. How would that have helped the cause for which she was protesting? Did she really want a life sentence in prison? My guess is she was trying to drive away from the officers demanding she get out of the car, as an act of defiance, and did not see him there. Or she panicked.
However, I cannot fault the officer for firing at her either. He was, as far as he could tell, being assaulted with a deadly weapon and at risk of his life.
It was probably a tragic accident.
But it is not a good or smart idea to taunt or try to call their bluff on armed officers on duty and about their business. The responsibility for her death rests with Ms. Good.
At this point, I believe Trump has no alternative but to intervene in Iran. He gave a clear warning that he would if the regime began mass killing. This has encouraged the protesters. Now the regime has called his bluff. If he does nothing, he will lose leverage in all future negotiations. The Iranian people will feel betrayed. Aside from the practical considerations, Trump and the world would know he had let the protesters down. That he had wimped out, just as he has accused Obama of doing.
He must do something big.
But we also can assume it will not be the insertion of US troops at scale. That would be too much for Trump’s base, and Iran is not a country that would be easy to take militarily.
Reports are that the protesters have control of the port of Bandar Abbas. Were I the US, or Israel, or the Gulf States, I would be ferrying in small weapons as quickly as possible, along perhaps with agents and unidentifiable mercenary soldiers. Arm and organize the people for guerilla action, and it becomes much harder for the authorities to repress to restore control. Think Northern Ireland.
But this is probably not spectacular enough for present public relations needs. Trump’s probably going to have to do some bombing.
He does not want to hit Iranian infrastructure—that would harm the general public. That might help the regime.
He does not want to hit the Iranian army—they are potential allies.
He wants to hit IRGC facilities, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. Better yet—and most like Trump—I see him levelling the homes and haunts of the top leaders of Iran, in hopes of cutting off the regime’s head in a surgical fashion. I suspect he could do this without risk of American casualties by firing cruise missiles from a submarine stationed in the Gulf.
Whatever he does, at this point, his honour almost demands it be enough that the Iranian regime does fall. It cannot be seen to have been in the end ineffective, or Trump loses.
Atheists often mock the idea that Jeus was blonde and blue-eyed. Some years ago, some group reconstituted the face of a 1st Century Palestinian Jew, based on excavated skulls, and presented this as what Jesus must really have looked like. Most notably, and obviously propagandistically, their supposed reconstruction had a frightened look on his face.
Portrait of Jesus as reconstructed from ancient Palestinian Jewish skulls.
I don’t know where these atheists are seeing many blonde, blue-eyed images of Jesus. An occasional artist has no doubt taken liberties, perhaps to make the point that Jesus was a man like us. The iconography of the Virgin Mary, or Joseph, is much more variable. The iconography of Jesus is pretty consistent. He is dark and Middle Eastern looking, with brown hair, brown eyes, beard, and with a reasonably prominent nose. Just as you would expect. This is not to say he is going to look like some random man who lived at the same time he did. There is a trail of icons establishing this appearance dating back to the early centuries AD.
Based on the Shroud of Turin, however, there is one thing that the common iconography seems to get wrong. The usual image of Jesus on the crucifix shows a slender build. The Shroud suggests someone stockier and more muscular; built like a boxer.
And surely the Shroud is right. Jesus presumably worked as a carpenter from adolescence to age thirty. He should have developed strong muscles from swinging hammers and saws and carrying logs.
One wonders why we ever thought otherwise. I suspect it is part of the general falsification of Jesus as “meek and mild.” The sort of Jesus a Ned Flanders would feel most comfortable with. Someone who could not hurt another person even if he wanted to. Let alone single-handedly drive the moneychangers out of the temple.
Subtle; but a subversion of the Christian message.
Granted, they would be strategic in case of a world war. Trump is generally shortening supply lines and consolidating US resources and industries. But this is merely judicious. It is always wise to have a strong defense. And here are calculations that China will make a lunge for Taiwan in 2027.
Which leaves the real motive rather simpler: Trump is a showman, and he wants to be remembered as one of the greatest US presidents. He has an ego: he likes seeing his name on things. He wants to be on Mount Rushmore.
As a major territorial acquisition, Greenland would put him up there with Jefferson, Lincoln, and Polk. Venezuela is a major national security triumph, and the oil is strategic. But Trump’s eye may really be on Cuba, now likely to collapse without its Venezuelan support. Then he would have solved a national security problem twelve presidents in a row could not solve, including the much-lauded Kennedy and Reagan. . I can even see him moving to annex Cuba once the current government collapses. The annexation of Cuba has been proposed by other presidents going all he way back to Jefferson. As far back as 1854, the US government declared Cuba “essential to US security.” Imagine if Trump were the one to finally do it? And why not--America once annexed Puerto Rico in the same way.
One might consider this all rather childish. Trump is an overgrown child. Okay, but so far, it all also looks beneficial to all. Greenlanders would probably be better off, more secure, wealthier, with greater freedoms, under the USA than under Denmark. Venezuelans are certainly better off without Maduro, and Cubans would be exponentially better off as part of the US. The new Trump ballroom will cost taxpayers nothing, and improve the White House. The Trump arch will cost taxpayers nothing, and instantly become a tourist attraction. Adding Trump’s name to the Kennedy Centre costs taxpayers nothing.
I believe that the growing epidemic of “mental illness,” drug abuse, self-mutilation, and suicides in North America is all due to a loss of any sense of meaning in life. Resisting the call to religion, a psychology-oriented friend suggests instead the value of “Meaning-Centred Therapy,” based on Viktor Frankl’s “logotherapy,” based on the postwar philosophy of existentialism. It “helps people find purpose and meaning in life, even amidst suffering, by focusing on creating, experiencing, and sustaining meaning, often through structured exercises to connect with sources like values, relationships, and creativity.”
Can you see the problem? This approach has two premises: first, you are depressed because you feel there is no meaning to life. Second, you are right, there is no meaning to life. You need to make something up. That will be $80. Thanks.
You cannot “create” meaning. You cannot pull yourself up by your own bootstraps.
A friend endorses CBT—Cognitive Behaviour Therapy. The idea, he says, is that “it identifies self-defeating beliefs and cognitive distortions that maintain depression, anxiety, addiction, etc. And it replaces these beliefs with more accurate, realistic and positive ones.”
But note the assumption here: that the patient/client’s depressing thoughts are wrong, or unrealistic. That is not a fair assumption. We should really expect that the average person has an unrealistic bias towards optimism—people tend to believe what they want to be true. Nobody wants bad things to happen.
There is a theory called “depressive realism.” Some studies that suggest depressed people are better than others at predicting future events, and more realistic in understanding their inability to control events. George Orwell and Winston Churchill both considered their chronic depression their superpower allowing them to face the hard truths others wouldn’t.
This seems to me a serious problem for CBT. First, it may be convincing some poor patient to walk off a cliff, figuratively speaking, having convinced himself is not really there.
Second, it may be encouraging him not to make necessary changes in his situation, assuring him that everything is fine as is. So trapping him in his mental illness.
Third, it is objectively immortal to encourage another to lie to himself, given that truth is of transcendental value.
Fourth, a perceptive patient is likely to see this flaw in the treatment, and the consolation will not work from the start. It will only deepen their despair. Just like many find it impossible to be moved by a John Denver song.
“Sunshine almost always makes me high...”
Prayer, by contrast, gives reasons for authentic optimism: God’s in control. All will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of things will be well.
My friend is impressed by studies that show CBT actually works. He quotes AI: “evidence-based methods like CBT are proven to help with various mental health issues, often working as well as medication or even better in combination with it.”
That last clause is the key: “success” is measured as “working as well as medication.” There is decent evidence that psychiatric medication does not work, so this actually suggests CBT and other “evidence-based” psychotherapies do not work.
Following is a passage quoted from an unpublished manuscript of mine:
Trevor Turner writes, in 2004, “recent critiques have shown that recovery and readmission rates in schizophrenia before 1950 were no different and that antipsychotic agents might even do more harm than good.” A 2013 study by Harrow and Jobe concludes “there is very little systematic evidence for the long-term benefits of antipsychotics. There is even some longitudinal data suggesting the opposite.” Discouragingly, Harrow and Jobe say that “in our longitudinal studies, the sample of schizophrenia patients who were untreated for many years showed significantly better outcomes than did those on antipsychotics.” An Alberta Hospitals study in 1978 produced similar results.
Doubts have surfaced for antidepressants as well. Studies indicate a 10% improvement in symptoms above placebo for the SSRIs, the “Prozac”-like medicines currently favoured. But as Horowitz and Wilcock point out, this is not a clinically significant result. Moncrieff and Kirsch point out that, given the criteria used, a sleeping pill would have scored as well. “Longitudinal follow-up studies,” they add, “show very poor outcomes for people treated for depression both in hospital and in the community.”
... Moncrieff and Kirsch conclude that “selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors have no clinically meaningful advantage over placebo. Antidepressants have not been convincingly shown to affect the long-term outcome of de-pression or suicide rates.” In his 2011 book The Emperor’s New Drugs, Kirsch concludes, “When we analyzed all of the data ―those that had been published and those that had been suppressed―my colleagues and I were led to the inescapable conclusion that antidepressants are little more than active placebos, drugs with very little specific therapeutic benefit, but with serious side effects.”
It is common for young American women to delusionally believe they are “10’s.” A popular topic for videos is some woman of average attractiveness or less insisting to an interviewer that she could have any man she wants. Surveys show the average woman wants a man in the top 10% in terms of wealth and height.
Which leaves a lot of women unmarried in their forties and wondering why no man would “step up” and produce the ring. Are modern men so afraid of responsibility? What happened to all the good men?
Little girls have always been raised with too much self-esteem: assured they are adorable. Feminism, teaching contempt for men, has not helped.
But the biggest causal factor is the modern acceptance and encouragement, since “the pill,” of casual sex. It has given women this false perception of their desirability.
After all, they have all the evidence they need that they are highly desirable. Evolutionary instincts tell men to have sex with as many women as they can. So any young woman of average attractiveness will find she has no trouble attracting attention from men who are “10’s.” Giving her the clear impression that this is her league. She will distain average men.
And she will keep waiting for that proposal that will not come.
Subtract the casual sex, and this would not happen. Not expecting sex without marriage, young men would no longer swarm women of only average looks. They would largely only pay attention to women they hoped to marry, and women would have a much better idea of their true market value and who their true suitors were. There would be less sex, and more love.
We would have more marriages, more children, a lot fewer bitter older women feeling cheated by men, and a lot fewer young men bitter towards women.
I woke up to one of those surreal moments when all at once the world does not seem real. What—the US just invaded Venezuela, captured the president, and he has now been arraigned in court in New York? And all of this happened overnight? I slept through an entire war?
Hard to take that in.
Besides sounding impossible, isn’t this a grave violation of international law? First, invading another country with whom you are at peace, and second, targeting the leader personally to take them out.
Back when Bush Sr. invaded Panama to arrest Noriega, that was my position.
But international law is not really codified; it evolves, like the common law. And I think it is evolving.
It began with the massacre in Rwanda. Popular opinion condemned the French in particular for not stepping in and preventing it, when they had the ability. They, and the UN forces, were constrained by this doctrine in international law that one must not interfere with the internal affairs of another country. This left a deep trauma. Surely that cannot have been right.
In reaction, when things got nasty in Serbia over Kosovo, NATO collectively decided they had the right to intervene—although Kosovo was long an integral part of Serbia, with no history of independence.
The idea had evolved to a right and perhaps a duty to intervene to protect human rights in another country, when the violations are egregious. After all, all men are brothers. Do we want another Holocaust, and another? Had Hitler not invaded Poland, would we merely accept his extermination of the Jews as an internal affair?
Amnesty International and the UN Human Rights Watch accuse Maduro of multiple violations of Venezuelans’ human rights. On that basis, given this new doctrine of international law, Trump had a right to intervene. Not acting solely on his own opinion, but on that of recognized international bodies. He acted alone, not with a coalition of other nations—but that was necessary to make the action swift and relatively bloodless.
Does this give other regimes the right to do likewise? After all, this was more or less Russia’s justification for invading Ukraine: to defend the human rights of Russian-speakers in the Donbas against a “fascist” Ukrainian government.
That is no doubt a concern. But it is about what aggressors could always do under the old rules: fake some false flag operation, and claim they were defending themselves. This is what Hitler did to justify his invasion of Poland. In either case, we have to rely on the general opinion of nations. Are the claims plausible?
For Trump and America, there is also the issue of the drug scourge. It is a crisis in North America. Is it reasonable to see them, as Trump does, as a weapon intended to weaken the US? Wasn’t that what Britain did to China with opium centuries ago? Hasn’t China openly claimed they are pursuing war by unconventional means, “wolf warriors”? There are claims, too, that Venezuela has been subverting elections elsewhere, including the US.
Must the US just sit there and accept this? With changing technology, the weapons of war have changed. Perhaps we must begin to act accordingly.
And if you are justified in going to war, Trump did so in the quickest and most bloodless way.
This may be the way of the future. Trump did something similar in Iran, the recent “twelve day war.” Which may now be bearing its final fruits in regime collapse. Go in, strike decisively, take out your opponent, and leave. He did something similar with Isis in Syria and Iraq. He seems to have understood something about how war has changed.
Bush Jr. could have done the same in Afghanistan or Iraq. The initial victories were quick and easy. He made the mistake of hanging around and trying to colonize.
It looks like Putin tried to imitate Trump’s approach in Ukriane—go in with a surgical strike, take out the opposing government, and it’s over. But Putin botched it. Russia does not have the technical capability and organization. They had to try it with brute force.
And Ukraine suggests that conventional war, in which armies line up on the field and shoot at each other, is obsolete; and of course, nuclear war works for nobody. Might it actually be the way of the future, and more just and humane, to fight by surgical strikes with superior coordination and technology?
The taking of Maduro seems, in any case, a brilliant strategic victory for the US. It should have an immediate effect in Iran, just when such a signal is needed. Trump has as much as said it is a warning to them. If they obviously violate Iranians’ human rights during the current protests, the US is will similarly step in. They are “locked and loaded.” “We know where you live.”
A dealmaker, Trump is a brilliant psychologist.
This makes it much more likely the Iranian government, already on a knife edge, will fall.
Now imagine if Venezuela becomes, under a new government, an American ally, which is naturally likely to occur. Imagine if Iran soon also, under a new government, becomes a close American ally. Lots of oil previously used as a geopolitical weapon against the US and its allies now comes under their control. A huge geopolitical win.
Especially since it is oil sales that are propping up Putin and financing his aggression in Ukraine. He too may now see the writing on the wall. Three birds with one stone?
Or four birds... It should also have a dramatic effect in Cuba, already in desperate economic conditions, hanging on by a thin stream of oil extending across the Caribbean from Venezuela. Their source of electricity, and financial support until recently, is gone.
It would surely be a great morale boost to America, and a boost to its prestige, if this thorn in its side were soon removed. Gulf of America indeed.
And, of course, the action is well calculated to frighten other hemispheric regimes into shutting down the drug trade and avoiding antagonizing America.
2026 is starting with a bang. Happy 250th birthday, America.
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