Advent Music from Jerusalem

 

Advent Music

 

Trump's Egomania Revealed

 

There is as lot of grumbling about Elon Musk being so active in the incoming Trump administration. The common sneer is that he must soon fall from grace, because “Trump doesn’t like being upstaged.” 

This is not really a new idea. I heard this comment before, when there was discussion of possible VP picks. 

Where is it coming from? Does anyone have any actual evidence of Trump turning on someone for upstaging him?

Maybe from Mike Pence being his original VP. Pence was always low key to a fault.

But the story I hear is that Pence was not Trump’s choice. He was forced on him by the party brass, who feared Trump’s flamboyance and wanted a steady hand and steadier image. Trump wanted Newt Gingrich—another firebrand.

The thesis remains unproven. Nobody has ever upstaged Trump. It is just a way to avoid giving Trump credit for his own great showmanship. He has never needed to suppress anyone else for being a better showman, so there is no way to know whether he would.

But look at his cabinet picks. They are what evidence we have. He has not selected faceless bureaucrats or shrinking violets or yes-men. Each choice is someone outspoken, charismatic, and with their own constituency. RFK Jr., Tulsi Gabbard, Pete Hegseth, Matt Gaetz, Tom Homan, Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy, Kristi Noem... They were the very ones you would pick if you were trying to find someone to upstage Trump.

Compare the cabinet of Justin Trudeau in Canada. None have established an independent constituency or identity with the public—unless by resigning. Those who already had a public profile, having served prior to Trudeau, Stephane Dion or Marc Garneau, were pushed out early. In the recent cabinet shuffle, with perhaps one third of his caucus in open revolt, Trudeau appointed David McGuinty and Nathaniel Erskine-Smith as new ministers. You would think at this point he was scraping the bottom of the barrel. Instead, he was finally forced at last to appoint members who, based on their skills, accomplishments, and constituencies, should have been in the cabinet all along. But they might have taken some of the spotlight from Trudeau.

As is usually the case, the common wisdom among the punditry is the opposite of the truth.

Downfall

 

Many commentators are asking how Trudeau and the PMO could have been so clueless as to think that Chrystia Freeland would cheerfully agree to reading a Fall financial statement she disagreed with, and then be replaced as finance minister the next day, for a position without portfolio. And being told this over a Zoom call! And without having any assurance from Mark Carney that he would take over!

The answer is narcissistic rage. 

Trudeau knew he was about to lose power. The polls show it, and now Trump was about to drop the hammer.

As M. Scott Peck pointed out, when a narcissist is challenged, and sees no exit, they lose touch with reality, become psychotic. Their world-view is in the first place based on a delusion, of their own superiority. Panicked, the imperative was to prove to himself that he still had power, by exercising it on someone else ruthlessly. He had to kick the dog, beat his child, see someone else entirely under his power suffer.

Freeland looked like a suitable scapegoat and victim, precisely because she had always been so loyal.  It would be most cruel, then, if he turned on her, and most hurtful.

Was it liable to blow up the government? Trudeau was not going to care. He knew he was going down anyway. His instinct was to do as much damage to others as possible as he went. Make it as spectacular as possible, to stay special. Best if he could destroy Freeland, destroy the Liberal Party, and leave Canada in the worst position to negotiate, on the way down. The narcissist, if he must lose, will do his best to take the world with him. It is the way a school shooter thinks.

What might Trudeau do next? I think it would be most characteristic for him not to prorogue parliament and step down, allowing the Liberals to choose a new leader. Rather, it would be to use the one power he has left: to go to the Governor-General and ask for dissolution and an election himself, or concur with Poilievre's call for a special sitting of Parliament. He's going down anyway. This is his chance to stick it to the Liberal Party, to those in the party who want him gone, and to the leadership hopefuls. It would also take revenge on Jagmeet Singh, who seems to be counting on the Liberals stalling by proroguing parliament to avoid a non-confidence vote until February, when Singh's pension kicks in.

Let's see.

Christmas is Coming

 

Advent Music

 

How Far We Have Come in our Treatment of the Indigenous Peoples

 

The traditional image of Tecumseh

One standard element of the wider myth of the North American Indian is the standard claim that, until recently, indigenous Canadians were despised and discriminated against. And they and their contribution was supposedly omitted from the history books.

As fate would have it, I inherited my grandmother’s high school history book, published by the Ontario Ministry of Education in 1914. Ontario High School History of Canada. Price 19 cents. So let’s have a look. Are the Indians left out? Are they treated with contempt as an inferior race?

The first chapter is about the land, the geography. But the second chapter is all about “The Aborigines.” Not “Indians”; “Aborigines.” “Indians,” it is explained, is a misnomer. Sounds pretty woke. 

They are described on introduction as “Men of good features and athletic build.” There is a detailed description of the various tribes or nations and where they lived at first contact. They are referred to a couple of times as “savages.” Our author does not hold the modern prejudice that all cultures must be considered equal on all points. But note, this is an issue of culture, not race. And he goes on to say that the Iroquois, however, “had done something … wonderful,” in forming the Iroquois Confederacy, “and had solved many of the most difficult questions of government.” “Each member of the tribe had great individual liberty.” “No state ever more fully realized Napoleon’s ideal of ‘a career open to talent.’” The author refers to their “political genius.”

That’s at worst, condemning the culture itself with loud praise. 

There may seem to be some criticism of their methods of war: “usually the only fate in store for the captive was torture and death.” But this is no more than a statement of historic fact, as recorded in all the contemporary accounts. And that sentence is immediately followed by this: “Yet, they did not disdain the arts of peace, and all the tribes had lifted themselves more or less above primitive barbarism.” 

Details are then given of Indian arts and culture. Things were done “with great skill”; “with real skill; “well-tilled fields.” The potlatch is praised as promoting hospitality. “To the Coast Indians the potlatch fulfilled the three objects performed for us by a dinner party, a general store, and a bank.”

To sum up, “Freedom marked the life of the Indian from his earliest days…. Nothing was done under compulsion.”

When it comes to Indian spirituality, there is some clear criticism. “His love of inflicting torture was only one sign that his nature was really nervous and hysterical. This we see clearly in his religion.” “Hysterical,” however, to this author, means it involved a lot of dancing and making noise. Presumably he would have the same problem with a Methodist tent meeting or Pentecostal service. This smacks of the Anglican unease with “religious enthusiasm.” A prejudice, perhaps, but not a racial one. 

Of the Inuit, treated separately, our author opines that under the influence of the Moravian missionaries, “They cast their cruelty and love of war aside, and became the peaceful race we know today.”

The story of the indigenous people is then woven through the following two chapters, on the European discovers and the early years of New France: the war between the French/Huron/Algonquin alliance and the Iroquois is described. 

Chapter Five is again wholly about the Indians, “Missionaries and Indians.” The aim of the missionaries, it is explained, “was to establish a native Christianity. They learned the language of their flocks, and made little or no attempt to teach them French. …In order to preserve their flocks from the many vices of European culture,  “They wished to keep their Indian charges in absolute seclusion from all white influence save their own.” So much for the modern claim that the intent was to impose European culture and assimilate the Indians. But this is the historical reality, borne out by the extensive Jesuit Relations.

In subsequent chapters, Iroquois are featured in the “Half Century of Conflict” between England and France. “Renewed Iroquois Attacks” on New France; “The Massacre of Lachine”; “The Three War Parties.” 

A chapter or two later, we read of “Pontiac’s War,” which was “a struggle against the white invader.” No guilt is attributed to the Indians for the uprising.

A chapter on the War of 1812 tells of Tecumseh, “a brave and chivalrous warrior and a far-seeing statesman.” The Indian role in that war and in its significant battles is covered.

The tale of the Red River Rebellion and North West Rebellion are told in terms sympathetic to Riel and the “half-breed” rebels. It was all down to insensitivity and blunders by the federal government. “It would have been better to give them want they wanted than to drive them into rebellion. Others of their requests, such as those for schools and hospitals, were still more reasonable.”

In sum, while a few of the terms used would, for arbitrary reasons, be considered politi9cally incorrect in acurrent text, the indigenous people are fully reported on and treated sympathetically.  When they clash with Europeans, the story is generally told from the indigenous point of view.

Canadians, and Americans, have always loved Indians, and have always been inclined to give them special treatment.

Giving to the Poor

 

I keep seeing stupid posts saying things like this: “Elon Musk is worth $442 billion. Such greed! There are only 8 billion people on Earth. If he handed all that money out, everyone on Earth would be a billionaire. No one man should have so much.”

Seriously. I see and hear this repeatedly.

Do the math: 442 divided by eight: Elon Musk could give each of us 55 dollars and 25 cents.

Musk would then have nothing, and nobody else would really be any richer.

A similar comment: “How can Musk complain about homelessness being due to addiction and mental illness? Why doesn’t he give some of his money to the poor and actually do something about it?”

This assumes that homelessness is caused by poverty; that you can fix poverty by giving poor people money; and that Musk is doing nothing useful with his money.

In principle, nobody should hoard possessions. See the parable of Dives and Lazarus. Luke 16: 19-31. If you have two coats, and you see someone else freezing, you owe him one of them. 

However, someone who is rich is not necessarily hoarding. Not all gains are ill-gotten. Musk or another wealthy man may be living modestly, but using his money as a tool to improve the world. Entrepreneurs commonly are. Musk clearly is. Give away all his money, and we get none of the innovations he is responsible for, which cumulatively improve everyone’s lives far more than a one-time payment of $55.

And if we do have more than we need, we must target our charity so that it actually does help others, rather than just using it to salve our conscience, or make us feel superior. We need to do what is best for them, not what is easiest for us. 

Homelessness is not caused by poverty. 

I volunteer at Romero House, giving meals to the poor. Some of the people who volunteer there have been on the streets themselves. They never got off the streets because someone gave them money. It is always because they found religion. Ask AA about that. Ask the Salvation Army.

One guy gave me some interesting information. Back in those days, he would beg on the streetcorner uptown. He claimed he cleared thousands in a week just doing this. The problem was, in the afternoon, he spent it all on drugs or alcohol.

So it does no good to simply give a truly destitute person money. It probably does them harm. 

The local own council sought last year to end homelessness by setting up a village of containers converted into mini homes, in a downtown parking lot where the homeless already gathered.

Yesterday, I saw the containers have all been shut down and moved into a pile. At the onset of another winter. Clearly the experiment did not work. 

The problem is meaninglessness. These people are in real need; they are dying by the day. But we have to give them meaning and hope, not money for another fix. Or, worse, a free fix. 

We need to get out and talk to them, about Jesus, the Gospel, God. As the religious charities are or ought to be doing. If you want to help, volunteer with them.

In the Bleak Midwinter

 

Advent music. 

Lyrics are a poem by Christian Rossetti. Music is by Gustav Holst. I find it intensely beauiful.

Although I'd tweak the lyrics if I could:

In the bleak mid-winter
  Frosty wind made moan
Earth stood hard as iron,
  Water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow,
  Snow on snow on snow,
In the bleak mid-winter
  Many years ago.

On Being Born Again

 

"Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?"

Friend Xerxes, in his latest column, scorns an evangelical pastor for asking him if he has given his life to Jesus.

“Many times,” Xerxes answered.

“Once is enough,” the evangelist replied.

Xerxes holds that truth dawns only slowly, over one’s lifetime. In the real world, it does not happen all at once.

But I have to agree with the evangelical pastor. Once is enough to give your life to Jesus, assuming you do not take it back; and we should expect conversion to come suddenly. This is how the Bible describes it.

See Saul on the road to Damascus. Deus ex machina.

But see also the calling of the apostles. “So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and followed him." James and John even abandon their father Zebedee in the boat, no doubt wondering what just happened. 

Compare the experience of Saint Augustine:

“I quickly returned to the bench…snatched up the apostle’s book…and in silence read the paragraph on which my eyes fell: ‘Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof’ (Romans 13:13)…. I wanted to read no further, nor did I need to. For instantly, as the sentence ended, there was infused in my heart something light the light of full certainty and all the gloom of doubt vanished away.” Augustine, Confessions 8

And Jesus says this is the way it is supposed to happen, refusing to let a prospective disciple wait even until his recently dead father is in the ground.  “Let the dead bury their own dead.” 

In an instant, everything changes.

Ask the Buddha suddenly enlightened under the Bodhi tree. Ask Moses encountering the burning bush.

I can’t really account for Xerxes’s experience being different. Of course over time one can grow in the faith, but the initial experience really is, as the Bible says, like being born again. I say that as a Catholic, not an evangelical Protestant. This is why in the Catholic Church we have the sacrament of Confirmation, a second baptism.

I suspect anyone who has not experienced this sudden wrench in perspective, like jumping off a cliff into the arms of angels, has not really given their life to Jesus in the first place.

Advent Music

 

Canadian Advent.

What if Joni is singing about her relationship with God?

Canadian Government in Chaos

Things in Ottawa are happening too quickly for commentary. The Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, Freeland, resigned two hours before she was to present the fall budget statement in the Commons, openly criticizing the PM for the policy she was about to announce.

The automatic next in line as finance minister, Champagne, immediately refused the position and refused to read the financial statement. 

PM Trudeau is apparently not available.

I don't know yet who actually presented the budget statement. 

Also this morning, the Housing minister resigned.

The Minister of Transport and Head of the Treasury Board, Anand, was cornered in the hall, and was clearly emotional. She was blindsided by Freeland’s resignation. She refused comment, saying she needed to compose her thoughts.

Situation changing hourly. Whatever happens next, this one will be in the history books.

This all seems to have been triggered by Trump’s tariff threat. Freedland refers to it in her resignation letter.

I think Trump knew what he was doing. Amid such chaos, it will be difficult for the NDP to vote confidence in the government yet again.

The Three Temptations of the Christ

 

I ponder whether Jordan Peterson is doing any good with his seminars on the Bible. I do not find him a clear thinker. An excerpt I happened to catch online recently seemed to me pretty weak. A view of faith and the tradition from the outside, and uncomprehending.

That may be the point. That may be what is needed for the greater public: an everyman to represent the audience, poking and prodding at this odd book and raising questions. What the heck is this all about? It may be a gateway for some.

Or it may be disastrous: an attempt to fit the Bible within Peterson’s false world view of clinical psychology.

The excerpt I heard was on the three temptations of Jesus in the desert, described to us by Matthew and Luke.

What struck me foremost was the Peterson panel’s need to discount the Devil’s clear statement in the gospels: “To you I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will.” The panel’s reaction sounded to me like denial. They refused to acknowledge that Satan is in charge of this world. They did not like to hear that. Peterson absurdly claimed that Satan was really offering Jesus rulership in Hell, even though the text says plainly “the kingdoms of this world.” Rulership is good, to Peterson, so long as you don’t accept Satan first. Hierarchy. Lobsters. Order. 

From this we see that Peterson himself craves power.

Which is probably why most people go into psychology. It is a perfect profession for bullies.

The panel was also puzzled that Jesus didn’t turn the rocks into bread. Why not? After all, bread is good, right? 

They didn’t seem to grasp the significance of a fast, and of honouring the commitment to fast. I think their confusion was why anyone would ever fast in the first place.

For the record, the proper understanding of the three temptations is simple, if you are familiar with Christian ethics. They are the three temptations we all face: the world, the flesh, and the devil.

 In offering the rulership of all the kingdoms of the world, “their authority and their glory,” Satan was offering the world.

In tempting Jesus to turn stones into bread and break his fast, Satan was offering physical pleasures: the flesh. We always think of sex here, no doubt, but food is also a pleasure of the flesh.

In tempting Jesus to throw himself down from the pinnacle of the temple and have angels rescue him, Satan was offering “the Devil.” The Devil is Lucifer; the essence of Lucifer is pride, self-will. To declare yourself God.

Throwing himself from the top of the temple and having angels catch him would after all, be the ultimate publicity stunt, issuing orders to God and showing God obeys him. “Putting God to the test.” Putting himself above God.

A more contemporary and secular description of the three temptations would be money, power, and fame. Money = the flesh; power = the world; fame = the Devil. They are about the same thing, the same temptations. They are the things that pull us off the rails. Are we missing any?

Now about the claim that the Devil is in control of the kingdoms of this world, and gets to choose their rulers: Those who become rulers are almost necessarily those who lust for power. Set up any system you like for choosing rulers, and this almost must remain true. It follows that the Devil is the ruler of this world: the temptation of power over others, which is always Satanic. 

This is no doubt why the emperor Constantine refused baptism until his deathbed. He understood that rulership was incompatible with true Christian virtue. It should be no surprise, if we continually find that our rulers and prominent politicians behave badly in their private lives. Good Christians are highly unlikely to find themselves in such positions.

The one possible partial exception is monarchies. Monarchies in effect select the ruler randomly, not because they want to rule. So monarchs may not be particularly power hungry.  This is why monarchies are a more benevolent form of government than dictatorships, even if the powers exercised are the same. But even within effective monarchies there are usually palace intrigues, power struggles, and needs to be ruthless to remain in power. Pity Lady Jane Grey.

A word as well on fasting, so incomprehensible to the psychological mindset. Fasting is of value in itself because, contrary to Freud, animal urges are not here to be satisfied; they are here to be disciplined. We are not animals. Otherwise there is no point to our existence. Man shall not live by bread alone, but by following the commandments of God. 

Psychology is so far from religion that I doubt the two can be reconciled. Making Jordan Peterson a false prophet.

About Those UAPs/UFOs over New Jersey

 

I think I know what’s going on with ll the drones being spotted over New Jersey.

The clue is that they are over New Jersey. Why New Jersey?

I say this is a promotion stunt for a new movie (or possibly a series) based on HG Wells’s War of the Worlds.

In Orson Welles’s famous radio adaptation in 1938, the aliens landed in Grovers Mill, New Jersey.

That play was done as a mock series of news reports. It was so realistic many thought Martians were really landing.

So a fleet of mysterious drones might recreate the moment and stimulate the sme level of interest again.

It is a good time to do a remake, too. The last was in 2005; twenty years ago. But between then and now, we have had the Covid pandemic, making the ultimate defeat of the aliens by a terrestrial virus topical. And there are current anxieties over the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the war in Gaza, the same sort of tensions that helped the 1938 broadcast go viral.

This makes more sense to me that it being UFOs/UAP of the usual sort. These drones do not look like the usual UFOs, and do not seem to have the same ability to defy the laws of physics. If it were a government operation, why would they do it over a highly populated area like New Jersey, with flashing lights? Hardly the way to ensure secrecy; this looks more as though designed to ensure publicity. Iran or China? Same objection. What would they have accomplished? Revealing a new capability so the US can figure out how to defend against it?

I say it is a Hollywood stunt. I expect the government is in on it. This is why they can say there is no security threat or threat to the population, while also saying they don’t know where the drones are coming from.

Remember the Good Old Days?

 

Does anyone remember when pedophilia was supposed to be a crisis only among the Catholic clergy? Any priest was suspect, and the church itself was blamed and fined crippling amounts. All paid ultimately by innocent parishioners. Many churches had to be shut down and sold off. Not to mention church-run orphanages and residential schools.

It was always obvious that this was scapegoating. Nobody was looking for pedophilia anywhere else.

We now know it was also projection. We find increasingly that pedophilia is common in the public schools, in sports teams, in clubs, in Hollywood. We learn that huge numbers of children go missing every year. That there are vast pedophile rings involving the rich and famous. That child sex trafficking is a big business.

And now that it cannot be blamed on the Catholic Church, the chattering classes seem unready to condemn it. Instead, films about the problem are suppressed; client lists are suppressed; child grooming is fairly openly promoted with pornographic books in school libraries and drag queen story hours. And those who object are condemned as bigots.

Does nobody see what is going on here?

The Catholic Church was and is targeted because it is a voice for protecting the children: from abortion, from immorality, from neglect, from abuse, from exploitation. 

Rules and morals protect the weak and vulnerable. The strong and malicious are always against them.

How Canada Falls

 

I think Trump is serious about annexing Canada. He’s been harping at it, recently referring to Trudeau as “governor of the great state of Canada.” 

Trump is moving the Overton window, He’s forcing the discussion. He’s done this before. Eventually, it becomes the standard wisdom. Remember when building the border wall was a crazy idea? And it was racist to object to illegals? 

The annexation makes every kind of sense from the American perspective. It is ultimately the only way to secure the northern border. 

Trudeau, predictably, is reacting in the worst way possible, from Canada’s point of view. He always wants a fight; this is how he reacts when challenged. And he does not care what damage he does to Canada; as noted in a recent column, as a narcissist, he probably wants to burn the place down because it is no longer inclined to vote for him.  

Trudeau is idiotically threatening to raise tariffs on American products coming into Canada as retaliation; rather than trying to reach accommodation.

In any trade war, Canada is bound to lose. Canada’s economy depends far more on trade with the US than the American economy depends on trade with Canada. The trade war will probably crash the Canadian economy, and soon have Canadians begging to join the US.

As it stands, an online poll has Canadians evenly split on whether they’d rather stay independent or join the US.

Trudeau’s intransigence may be part of Trump’s calculations. He might have expected this reaction. As a skilled negotiator, he probably studies his opponents’ weaknesses. He seems to be deliberately provoking Trudeau to do something stupid. 

I can see it happening. This or that individual province votes to join the US. The US then piles forces in, forestalling any action by the federal government. If any province but Nova Scotia, PEI, BC  or Newfoundland make this move, they cut Canada in half, making it unviable. 

I’d put my money on Alberta going first.

Poilievre might yet right the ship; but I think it is going to happen. 

There Is a War

 

A Jehovah’s Witness recently justified their non-observance of Christmas to me by quoting 2 Corinthians 6:

“14 Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? 15 What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? Or what does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? 16 What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? …

17 Therefore, “Come out from them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you.”

This only works as a reason to shun Christmas if you think Christians are unbelievers. And then you contradict St. Paul in this passage, for he cites Christ as the object of belief. 

But this advice to stay clear of unbelievers is standard for monotheists in general. It should not be ignored.

The same advice is in the Talmud: "Separate yourself from the nations, and do not eat with them." Jubilees 22: 16.

The Quran is more violent: “Kill them [the unbelievers, kafirs] wherever you come upon them and drive them out of the places from which they have driven you out. For persecution is far worse than killing.” Surah Al-Baqarah 191.

Even John Locke and the philosophers of liberal democracy say so: religious liberty is a necessary human right, freedom of conscience, but atheism is not to be tolerated in a liberal democracy.

This is vital advice. We cannot ignore or reject it; it comes with the warrant of God himself. Believers cannot mix with those who do not believe in God. One or the other will be persecuted. Belief and unbelief are fire and water.

This is indeed historically shown to be true. The pagan Roman empire could get along with the worshippers of any given pagan/polytheistic deity. But they could not tolerate the Jews, and levelled Jerusalem and destroyed the Temple. And they persecuted the early Christians. So did the polytheistic Babylonians before them—then the Jews were allowed to return to their lands by Cyrus, the Zoroastrian, a fellow monotheist. 

Other historical examples could be multiplied almost indefinitely. 

But why are the two positions incompatible? Why can’t we all just get along?

Belief in God means belief in the absolute. God is the absolute, by definition. God is the good, the real, and the beautiful. Rejecting God is relativism. Relativism cannot permit the existence of the absolute, and therefore cannot accept absolutism as tolerable. And absolutism must view some things as positively wrong; therefore it cannot accept relativism. 

Locke’s objection is that an unbeliever cannot feel himself bound by an oath. Not recognizing the authority of God implies not recognizing the demands of morality, or truth, or beauty. Relativism cannot accept that there is such a thing as reality, or truth. 

Similarly, it cannot accept that anything is either good or bad. So a relativist will not accept the demands of morality.

That is usually why people become relativists: to escape their conscience. The existence of God is accessible to human reason. It has been proven by the philosophers a dozen or more ways. Given that this is so, anyone rejects God ultimately because they reject the authority of God, reject being subject to Him, or to anyone but themselves. 

“Better to reign in Hell, then serve in Heav’n.” – Milton, Stan’s speech, Paradise Lost.

Accordingly, as Locke argued, one cannot trust an unbeliever. 

Now let’s get to the third great transcendental. Rejecting God means rejecting reality, for God is the ultimate real. It means rejecting good and evil, rejecting morality. It also means rejecting the concept of beauty. As, for fear of their conscience, unbelievers will shun any hint of the absolute, they will actually shun beauty.

This illuminates Jesus’s repeated test of the false prophet: “By their fruits you shall know them.” 

A relativistic age like our own will lose its capacity to produce beauty in the arts. Artists who are unbelievers will not produce anything of value.

But here’s the bigger, more ominous problem: we are now living cheek by jowl, throughout the West, with a large mass of genuine unbelievers, kafirs. This is unsustainable, and must lead to trench warfare, figuratively or even literally. There is a reason why we all it a "culture war."

We are seeing the battle lines draw up more clearly all the time: the religious cluster around Trump in the US, Catholics like RFK or JD Vance, evangelicals like Huckabee or Cruz, Hindus like Ramaswamy or Gabbard, orthodox Jews like Ben Shapiro; while the Liberal Party in Canada bans from their ranks anyone who opposes abortion.

And one side or he other must triumph. They cannot just coexist.

How Trudeau Will Kill Canada

 

Jordan Peterson points out that Justin Trudeau is a narcissist. This is dangerous, because he is about to lose power. What does a narcissist do if he is rejected? Narcissistic rage. He will try to destroy those who have rejected him. This is the impulse that gives us mass shooters. Trudeau has no love for Canada. On leaving office, he is likely to do whatever is in his power to destroy Canada, for letting him down.

We saw Hitler do this, ordering the destruction of German infrastructure in his final days, rather than letting it fall to the Allies. Orders fortunately countermanded by Speer.

Biden is also an extreme narcissist. This is why he sabotaged Kamala Harris’s campaign in subtle ways; why he sabotaged the Democratic Party by pardoning his son. They let him down. Now he is releasing long-range missiles to Ukraine. We must fear what else he might be up to; especially since he has the nuclear codes. But the US president is fortunately relatively restrained in what he can do unilaterally. 

Trudeau, as Canadian Prime Minister, unfortunately, has more unilateral power and fewer constraints. The Liberal Party’s rules prevent MPs from rising against him. He can do more damage than Biden can. He has already pushed through some outrageous legislation. We must fear what he may do in the almost one year he has left, if he grasps that he is inevitably going to lose the net election.

Investment in Canada has been in decline ever since he took power in 2015.The Canadian economy does not look that bad yet, but I suspect that it has been running on prior reputation and fumes. That can go on for a while, and then there is a general collapse. We already have a homelessness crisis, a medical crisis, a drug crisis, and a cost of living crisis. And a foreign affairs crisis, Trudeau having alienated many trading partners. Even without Trump’s 25% tariffs, things could get worse quickly. I now think Trump genuinely intends to impose the tariffs. And Trudeau may be doing his best to speed the general collapse. He wants it. Canada has failed him.

Jordan Peterson fears that by the time Poilievre gets into power next October or before, the damage may be too great to repair. He will just be left holding the bag. 

We may be begging the US to come in and take over.

Something similar happened to Scotland in 1707: economic hardship and poor management obliged them to unite with England, in return for debt relief. Similar financial problems convinced Newfoundland to join Canada in 1947. 

Why would the US want us?

Canada’s natural resources, including important strategic materials, make it a good investment.

But more critically, in this age of easy transportation and mass migration, the world’s longest undefended border has become untenable. It is possible to build a wall across the US-Mexico border. The Canada-US border is too long for that, and needs to remain porous to sustain the current volume of trade. 

The only solution to that problem is to ensure that Canadian and US immigration and border policy is the same: undesirables must be stopped on entry to Canada, as they cannot be stopped at the US border.

This means the US border must encompass Canada. 

Trump may have seen this, and the 25% tariff may be intended to force the issue.

Let’s just hope it happens without too much suffering, dislocation, or blood.

A Traditional Family Christmas

 

Anti-Israel protesters disrupting Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade, NYC.

Last night I attended our city’s ceremonial lighting of the municipal Christmas tree in front of City Hall. The mayor and councilors were there; the local MPP; Santa Claus, and a dancing angel. A big event, well attended, with other ancillary events going on all over town. Free Christmas films in the restored theatre. Marshmallows over campfires in the park. Strolling carollers. Dancers in the malls. An organ recital at the Anglican church. It should have been a magical evening for families.

But it was marred from the start by perhaps a half-dozen protesters who parked in front of the unlit Christmas tree, waving Palestinian, Syrian, and Lebanese flags, playing loud music with a political message from some boombox, as if to drown out those on the dais, and shouting through a loudspeaker such slogans as “Happy f***ing birthday, Jesus!” and “Jesus was born in Palestine.”

After a while they disappeared. I hope it was because the police threatened arrest.

Such demonstrations and, worse, riots in places like Montreal, are a major reason why popular sentiment is turning so quickly against mass immigration. October 6, last year, was a turning point. 

Day after day, the pro-Palestinian protesters are doing their best to show that multiculturalism does not work. 

Now even Justin Trudeau and Kier Starmer are promising to reduce immigration and deport illegals.

The silent majority only wants to live their lives in peace and quiet. 

Grifters can play on this. They raise a fuss, and the majority will give them whatever they demand, to keep the peace.

But this is danegeld. The troublemakers get louder and louder, seeing that it pays well, until at last the majority wakes up to the realization that the only way to keep the peace is to get rid of the troublemakers. 

The grifters will always make this mistake. 

We seem to be at that point. 

I am tempted to say that Muslim immigrants from the Levant specifically are the problem. I thought at the time it was madness to allow a mass immigration of Syrians fleeing the Syrian civil war. The problem was, by letting in both sides, we were importing the war itself. It was as if, in response to persecution of Jews in Nazi Germany, we opened our borders to all German immigration, not just Jews.

But it is not just the Muslims who have gone too far. It is also the transgender lobby with their demands to take our children. It is the indigenous lobby with their church burnings and false claims of mass graves. The great awakening is surely waking up to them as well.

It may not get too bloody; it may not be as bad as WWII.

A similar parallel is Quebec, with its mounting demands and threats throughout the second half of the twentieth century. All it took then was Stephane Dion laying down the law in a closely reasoned public letter. 

Let’s hope.

Bubble Life

 

I attended a coffee and conversation recently in which one participant bravely brought up his political doubts, in an oblique way.

“Whatever you think about Trump, didn’t the media let us down? Didn’t they tell us Trump couldn’t win? Didn’t they tell us nobody would vote for Trump? Seventy-five million people did. How is this possible? They’re not giving us the whole story.”

Cognitive dissonance. Other participants first responded by suggesting other news sources he might prefer-- all either “mainstream” or explicitly on the left. No right-wing sources like Daily Wire or Instapundit or even X. Of course they would not mention X except to condemn it; but BlueSky was recommended.

A non sequitur, of course. All were media that said Trump was evil and Harris would win. Still within the bubble.

The disconnect being too obvious, one participant at last piped up:  IQ has been dropping in the US for a couple of generations.

Mutters of agreement. This seemed to satisfy everyone, and ended the conversation. They moved on to another topic.

Of course this explanation was nonsensical. There is no reason to suppose that people with a low IQ will automatically vote en masse for an obviously bad candidate. At most, you would expect their votes to be a bit more random.

I appreciated the bravery of the man who raised the question, if timidly. He was braver than I. I kept my peace. It was not worth it to speak up. I suspect there were others in the meeting who also did not believe Trump was an obviously better choice than Harris. But who wants to be first to say so? We have all learned that it does not pay to disagree with a leftist. They will become hysterical. 

This is what it looks and feels like when people are delusional. 

I think wokism and wokery will now collapse quickly. The bubble has begun to pop. It has popped, and many are wandering around, confused.

More Reasons for Canadian Independence

 

In my quest for one good reason why Canada should be independent of the US, I have watched a video from True North.

Here are their arguments, as I noted them:

1. Canadians are more polite

Canadians have a reputation for being more polite; so do US Southerners. “Southern gentility.” Would anyone consider this a reason for the US South to be independent?

2. Canadians welcome immigrants.

Obviously, the US too welcomes immigrants. It is the original immigrant society. As we have that in common, it is an argument for union, not separation. 

3. America expects their immigrants to assimilate.

The old saw was that Canada was a “mosaic,” while the US was a “melting pot.” Canada has now enshrined “multiculturalism” in our constitution, while US money carries the motto “E Pluribus Unum.” A sad attempt to make Canada different from the US somehow. A distinction; but it is still an argument for union. Multiculturalism, as anyone could have predicted, is proving a disaster wherever it is tried. Witness the riots in Europe. The fact that it is embedded in the Canadian constitution, is a compelling argument for abolishing Canada and assimilation to the US. It may be the only way to get rid of the policy.

4. America has stronger protections for rights and freedoms. E.g., Canadians are squeamish about a right to bear arms.

One might also cite the stronger commitment to freedom of speech, versus Canada’s “hate speech” laws. Again, while this is a distinction, it is a compelling argument for union. It gives us more rights.

5. Commitment to the crown

This is the reason Canada exists. But how important is it? How much is it worth sacrificing for? The crown’s role, afer all, is only symbolic.

6. There is more decentralization of power in Canada

This is a bit of a historical accident. On paper, US states have more power than Canadian provinces. Canadian decentralization has developed de facto from the need to appease Quebec.

That need would continue were Quebec part of the larger union. Accordingly, assimilating Quebec should decrease centralization throughout North America, given that the US Constitution allows for more decentralization than the Canadian one.

This makes union more desirable: decentralization is a trend already in the US.

7. America is an escape route for oppressed Canadians, so long as it is independent.

This argument works the opposite way too: Canada is an escape route for oppressed Americans, as in the days of the Underground Railroad, or the Vietnam draft.

This seems to me the best argument for an independent Canada. 

Yet the escape route is more open and accessible, if less complete, if we have the right to live and work on either side of the border. With fifty states, or fifty-five, instead of ten provinces, we have more options. If we need to flee some federal policy—there is still the UK, Australia, New Zealand, the Bahamas, Thailand, and so forth. It seems less necessary than it once was for the complete escape to be within a day’s drive.

So I have yet so see a strong argument for Canada to remain independence. It seems no more than a sentimental attachment.

Unburdened by What Has Been?

 

Discussion of the US annexing Canada is spreading, in the media and on X. 

I watch carefully the Canadian responses. What arguments does anyone have? Why is Canada independent?

The one argument I see is “we have universal health care.”

Not a good argument. In theory, if it so chose, Canada could still offer and provide universal health care for its residents as a US State.

Most often, no argument is given. Just an expletive, usually one beginning with F and ending with off.

This proves those who react this way have no argument.

As a businessman and entrepreneur, Trump has the skill of seeing a business opportunity. He sees when money has been left on the table. 

Canada was left on the table by the Statute of Westminster, and then progressively by the dropping of preferential tariffs when the UK entered the EU, the patriation of the Canadian constitution, and the influx of new immigrants. Its reason to exist was its British ties. They are gone. Britain walked away.

I think Canadians have felt this in their hearts for some time. Hence the frequent lament about an absence of Canadian identity. Justin Trudeau himself has said Canada has no identity, no reason to exist, no "mainstream." Hence the Canadian desire to join any international association going. Hence it's idolization of anything coming from abroad, its "multiculturalism."

Perhaps it would be a mercy.

I Think He's Serious

 

Someone leaked Trump's comment at his recent meeting with Trudeau, suggesting Canada become the 51st state. 

Why was this in particular leaked, and nothing else from the meeting?

Actually looks like a trial balloon.

Trump has since posted this on X:

Yeah, could be a troll. 

Bet it isn't. He's certainly forced the idea into the public discourse. Trump knows how to move the Overton window. Remember when building a border wall was a crazy idea?

Was Manifest Destiny Really Such a Bad Idea?

Report has leaked that, at their recent meeting in Mar-a-Lago, Justin Trudeau argued that Trump must not impose his proposed 25% tariff on Canada, “because it would wreck Canada’s economy.” To which Trump reputedly responded, “if the Canadian economy can’t survive without ripping the US off for $100 million a year (or whatever the figure was), maybe you should just become the 51st state. You could be governor. 

And everyone is taking this as a joke.

Is it?

And is it a bad idea?

Let’s consider it from Trump’s point of view. People, including me. have been assuming that his threat of 25% tariffs was just a gambit to open negotiations. But Trump has also said he wanted to finance the government with tariffs rather than income taxes. So the high tariffs fit in with his plan. Why would he sacrifice it for Canada’s sake? America first!

Trump is also concerned with legacy. He has already floated the idea of buying Greenland. High tariffs could indeed force Canada to plead for union. Trump would have more than doubled the land mass of the US, outdoing Thomas Jefferson’s Louisiana purchase, and surely earning him a place on Mount Rushmore.

(Much easier to do, by the way, with modern AI and 3-D modelling. They are already being used to carve stone decorations for building exteriors. Not the major undertaking it was for the president already there.)

Annexing Canada makes huge sense for America’s national security. It secures vast strategic resources and control of the Arctic, more urgent with global warming. Canada is incapable of securing the Arctic for itself. By joining forces, on the other hand, America becomes stronger and better able to defend our joint interests.

Canada has, after all, been a useless military ally in recent years, underspending on its defense and relying on the US taxpayer to defend it. Why should the US put up with this?

The argument against annexation is that Canada is politically more left-leaning than the US; so giving 40 million Canadians the franchise would be bad for Trump’s Republican Party. But this might not deter Trump personally, since he is not running again. Moreover, Trump has shown an ability to alter the electoral map, and appeal to new coalitions of voters. He has won over most of the working class; of the rust belt; he has drawn Hispanics--all formerly considered bedrock leftist constituencies. He seems to me to already be in progress of winning over Canadians. “Maple MAGA” is becoming a thing. Why not? The Republican party is being remade in Trump’s image. Trump’s agenda has really never been either clearly traditionally left or right.

One might worry that there would be much unrest among the local population if the Americans took over. It would have to be voluntary. But the tariffs could do a lot to convince Canucks of the need.

Why, given all this, would Trump back down on his tariffs? As a personal favour to Justin Trudeau?

Where's that laughing emoticon when I need it?

Now let’s look at it from the point of view of Canadians. Why not? What is the argument for Canada remaining independent? After all, the two countries share the same language (but for Quebec), the same culture, the same geography, the same history. Nova Scotians have at least as much in common with the people of Maine as they do with those of Quebec; or as Maine does with Louisiana. It has often been observed that British Columbians have more in common with, and more common interests with, the people of Washington or Alaska than with Newfoundlanders. Anywhere else on the globe we would probably be one country. 

The sole reason Canada became independent was loyalty to the British crown and the British connection. The British connection evaporated for all practical purposes in 1932 or so. Since then, there is only the sentimental attachment to the Royal Family. 

How much is that worth?

Canadians, if they joined the US, would not lose self-government. That is the beauty of the federal system. Canadians can continue to tend to their own Canadian affairs within the wider union. Rather, joining the US gives greater assurance of self-government. As we have seen recently, Canadian governments can go rogue and trample human rights. The Americans have a longer and culturally stronger tradition of democracy; with union, in such cases, the feds could step in. Just as Eisenhower sent in the national guard to desegregate Arkansas back in the day. Moreover, with greater ease of movement, Canadians could more easily escape a repressive local or regional government. One could always easily move to Florida, say, or some other given state whose policies suit you better. You can do this now to a more limited extent within Canada, but the choices are far fewer. Historically, Americans have always found it easier to move about than Canadians have.

Joining the US gives a greater measure of self-government in another sense too. It is a reality that who is in power in the US, and what policies they pursue, matters vitally to Canadians; arguably more than their own government. This is true for the entire Western world, but to Canada more than anyone. Nevertheless, as things stand, Canadians have no vote on who is in power in Washington, or what policies they pursue. We would surely be better off with representation.

And what are we paying for independence? Canadians have almost always made less than Americans on average, and everything costs more. Opportunities are much fewer for those hoping to rise to the top of their profession or business, without full access to the vastly larger US consumer and job market. We are paying a huge premium merely for a sentimental attachment to the British monarchy.

And if Trump imposes a 25% tariff across the board, that premium becomes dramatically greater. We already seem skidding into Third World status under current government policies; this would cast the die.

Let's see: Canadians, how about better pay, more opportunities, lower taxes, cheaper food and housing, and easy escapes from winters in Florida?

Canada is surely too large to be admitted as one state. Granted, the population is about the same as California, the biggest current state. But with its land area, Canada could soon have a much larger population. Besides, you really must recognize the distinctiveness of Quebec.

Ten states might be too generous. Five makes the most sense: BC, the Prairies, Ontario, Quebec, and the Atlantic Provinces.

The assimilation of Canada might start a trend: for many of the same arguments apply for the rest of the English-speaking world. Once, it might have made sense to have separate governments, because of distances and poor communications. Today, everyone in Australia knows everything that is going on in Canada, instantly, and everyone in the US knows and cares about everything that is going on in Britain. Separation is increasingly artificial and undesirable.

What We Lose by Losing Our Christian Faith

 

Jesus exorcises the Gerasene/Gadarene demoniac

The latest column by my left-wing friend Xerxes was unremarkable. But I found some of the reader comments on a previous column most interesting, and concerning. They illustrate the current prejudice against ethical monotheism.

“It's easier to hate a monolithic category of people (‘Christians’) than to admit that many people in the category actually believe in much of the same liberties and freedoms these anti-religious folk do.”

That is an attempt to play nice with Christianity, but it is pretty off base. Our concepts of human rights and personal freedoms come from Christianity. Christians necessarily believe in them more than non-Christians. John Locke based his philosophy of human rights on the Bible and the story of creation in Genesis; the Declaration of Independence argues that our rights come from God. Human rights and human dignity are based on the concept of free will as the divine spark in mankind.

The decay in belief in Christianity is the great threat to our liberties. 

Note how well human rights were observed in Stalinist Russia, Maoist China, Khmer Rouge Cambodia, or Nazi Germany; all anti-Christian regimes.

On paganism—condemning missionary activity in the Americas as cultural imperialism:

“All the people whom they encountered, who had a different belief system, were deemed to be pagan.  The word pagan is a word that is used to demean, belittle, and negate the value of the other.  By labelling these people as ‘pagan’ it enabled the colonizers to abuse, enslave, and slaughter these newly encountered humans.  By calling them pagan it took away their humanity.”  

 To which Xerxes responds: “I apologize. ‘Pagan’ was a shorthand way of saying ‘other,’ and I should have been more careful.”

“Pagan” is a critically meaningful term. Christians do not refer to Muslims or Jews as pagans; nor do Muslims refedr to Christians or Jews as kaffirs, the equivalent Arabic term. “Pagan” refers to the older, more primitive shamanic practices which have been supplanted by the great universalist religions.

And polytheism/shamanism is as unlike religious faith as darkness is to light, magic is to science, or madness is to sanity. Asians, still familiar with both, will immediately insist that shamanism is not a religion; Buddhism or Christianity are.

Paganism not only allows, but endorses and requires, such practices as human sacrifice, infanticide, self-mutilation, and slavery. The pagan gods are not morally good; they are at best indifferent to mankind, and usually hostile. Recall the myth of Prometheus, the concept of hubris, and the many rapes of Zeus.

In India, where there is residual paganism (although devotional Vaishnavism is now dominant, and an ethical monotheism) the British had to suppress human sacrifice by sects like the Thuggi, suttee (the immolation of widows), and the caste system. These are things that would be unthinkable under ethical monotheism; but considered a necessary religious observance by pagans.

This is why the ancient Hebrews felt they needed to exterminate the Canaanites, and forbid even dining with them. This is why the Quran says you are supposed to kill a kaffir on sight. Paganism is fundamentally immoral.

And this is why paganism quickly evaporates wherever one of the ethical monotheisms makes contact. The pagan gods are demons; monotheisms exorcise them. So people flock quickly to the new faith; it is their refuge from demons. This is why Christianity, under active repression, spread rapidly to take over the Roman Empire, and then Europe beyond. It was their reputation for successful exorcisms. This is clearly documented in the ancient manuscripts; and in the New Testament. The order of exorcists was larger in the early church than the priesthood. This was indeed Jesus’s commission to the apostles: to go about casting out demons. Which were common, clearly, in the largely pagan society of ancient Palestine. Especially in non-Jewish areas, such as among the Gerasenes.

For the same reason, Christianity spread rapidly in the Americas, with little opposition, once it arrived. It protected against the demons of the night. In South India, Saint Francis Xavier was able to personally baptize 50,000 people in ten years, despite the requirement to first be properly catechized. Today across Africa, exorcisms are common, and Christianity is sweeping the continent.

Unfortunately, with the waning of Christian commitments in North America and Europe, the demons are returning. So we are seeing a rising tide of mental illness, addictions, infanticide, child mutilation, self-mutilation, pedophilia, and suicides. 

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last….

Interest Groups

 

I keep hearing left-wing commentators lamenting that women, or blacks, or the working class, are foolish to vote for Trump, because they are “voting against their interests.” Anna Kasparian, recently gone independent, laments during an interview that “neither party any longer represents my interests.”

This is not how a good person talks.

A good person, and a responsible citizen, does not vote for their self-interest. They vote for what they believe is best for the country as a whole. They vote for the policies that they believe are just.

It is a striking testament to our depravity that this keeps passing without comment.

The MAGA Dance

 

I see on X a post by someone mocking Trump supporters in Staten Island for dancing to the tune of “YMCA.” 

“You see how stupid Trump supporters are? They don’t realize they’re dancing to a gay song!”

Nice self-own. Why does he think Trump supporters would have any objection to dancing to a “gay song”? He thinks there is something wrong with being gay.

Trump and many of his supporters oppose transgender ideology. But any educated person knows there is no relation between being gay and being “trans”; and no common interest. In fact, their interests conflict. JD Vance has pointed out that “normal gays” are as disturbed by the trans agenda of sex change, child transitioning, and men in women’s spaces as anyone else. There is a common argument that it is often gay kids who are put through the puberty blockers and sex change surgeries—instead of allowing them to be gay.

The commentator also does not realize—and pundits recently all seem to make the same mistake—that the Staen Island crowd is not actually dancing to “YMCA.” They are dancing to that tune; but it became the Trump anthem because in 2020, gay musician Ricky Rebel put out a viral version with new lyrics. “YMCA” was replaced with “MAGA.” 

Young man
Walk away from the hate
We're all human
And we don't segregate

Just like women
Help make America great
We are all
In this
Together

Our colours
Are red, white and blue
And they stand for
Every wo-one of you

And together
Here's what we're gonna do
We're gonna make
America great

Everybody sing

M a g a
M a g a-ay

It is this that the crowds are dancing to. Some in the Staten Island video were actually signing the letters M-A-G-A on the chorus.

The left is kept in the game by “low-information” voters, who never stray beyond the legacy media for their views. This is an echo chamber, allowing them to grow so sure of themselves that they do not even check their assumptions with so much as an online search.

AI and I

 

Image of cat and fiddle, with cow jumping over moon, by Dall-E

I’m a bit of a techie. I was developing educational software for the Ontario Ministry of Education back in the early eighties, and taught desktop publishing at George Brown College. I’ve only recently let that side of me take a rest. So I’m naturally fascinated by AI. 

The reality is that it is coming at the speed of a freight train on the main line whether we want it or not. We need to figure out what this means. 

It is going to make a lot of things cheaper. It is a dirty secret that AI can already diagnose illnesses more accurately, let alone more quickly, than an MD. So much for the doctor shortage. So much for the spiralling costs of Medicare. The vast majority of legal work can be replaced by AI: most of it is drawing up contracts and looking up cases in the law books. Perfect for computerization. Accounting too should be easy for AI to take over. So the most expensive things in the economy may soon be available to everyone for pennies.

Just yesterday, for the first time, I used AI to prepare my monthly student assessments. Saved a lot of time, and with only a little tweaking, it was perfectly accurate and acceptable. I’ve started to use AI instead of Google for online search, and this is again much more efficient.

Elon Musk and other high tech honchos predict that soon, with AI, there will be essentially no need for anyone to work, and we will nevertheless have a high standard of living. There will be little need for money. So that’s all good.

There are certainly also dangers from AI. 

First off, if AI can take over all the white collar jobs, and robots can take over all the blue collar jobs, things may be cheaper, but there seems to be no way left for us to generate any income.

My fantasy has been that, with AI taking over all the soulless occupations, we will be freed for purely creative work, for the arts.

But in its latest iterations, AI can produce quite competent art, and poetry, and stories, and videos. So is there any market left for humans even here?

I argue elsewhere that the human element here remains conceptually irreplaceable; just as a robot girlfriend would never be a legitimate alternative.

Whoever programs AI can also program it with their own political biases; can program it for totalitarian purposes, or in their own favour. In theory, we can always pull the plug; but if done well, especially over time, this could become impossible to detect. A matrix.

This is why it is important that it become and remain open source.

Still, Why Poetry?

 

Emily Dickenson

I have argued that we need poetry to restore meaning to our lives; to address and evoke truth, good, and beauty.

Still, poetry is hard. Why can’t truths just be spoken as simple declarative sentences?

Firstly, we can really only speak declaratively about material things. Anything beyond that requires metaphor. For example, the word “spirit” actually means breath or wind. “Psyche” actually means butterfly. “Anger” means pain. We have difficulty understanding abstract concepts, spiritual experiences, or emotions, because of this; because we have no way to objectively verify that we mean the same thing by the words we use.

This, without poetry, shuts us off from all the meaning of life, and all meaningful communication with others.

Poetry and the arts, but especially poetry, is necessary to express anything really important clearly. 

There is a second reason why we cannot speak plainly. Some people are invested in lies. They have something to hide. Truth terrifies them.

Jesus says in the New Testament, explaining why he speaks in parables instead of saying thing directly:

“Do not give what is holy to the dogs; nor cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you in pieces.”

People who are purely materialist and bestial in their concerns will crucify you.

Therefore one speaks in parables.

Emily Dickinson:

“Tell all the truth, but tell it slant. Success in circuit lies.” 

The Buddha gives a somewhat similar warning in the Fire Sermon. 

Your house is on fire. Your children are in the house. You cannot simply shout that the house is on fire. They will panic. They will not know what to do. Instead, you lure them out with toys.

Countering Population Collapse

 

Almost without missing a beat, the world has gone from a supposed emergency of overpopulation to an emergency of population decline. Nobody seems to have stopped to point out that all the experts were wrong. Calamitous population decline projections are the justification for all the mass migration. But even if it is a good idea, it is not a long-term solution. Populations are due to collapse everywhere: we will run out of immigrants in the rich countries.

Governments like that of France and Hungary are trying to reverse the trend with cash payments and tax breaks for women who have children. This is expensive, and not likely to be enough.

The underlying problem, I believe, is feminism. The entire idea of feminism was that women were to abandon their traditional role as mothers and go out and make money instead. This was always a matter of robbing the future for the present. It was always going to hurt us a generation or two down the line, as child-bearing and child-raising was devalued.

But what non-draconian practical measures could be taken now?

First, the current immigration policies are insane. Most of those flooding in, legally or illegally, are young men. We do not need men if we are to keep our population up: men do not bear children. We need young women.

In the immortal words of Bob Dylan:

Well, my telephone rang it would not stop,

It's President Kennedy callin' me up.

He said, "My friend, Bob, what do we need to make the country grow?"

I said, "My friend, John, Brigitte Bardot,

Anita Ekberg,

Sophia Loren."

Country'll grow.

Second, instead of demanding equal pay for equal work, we need to encourage extra pay for sole breadwinners with children. This was the old system: it was why men were paid more than women. It made it possible for mothers to stay home and have babies. It was also more profitable for the employer: a sole breadwinner is more stable, less likely to leave for another job, and can devote more time and energy to his work.

We might also do something about the need for and high cost of post-secondary education. This is intuitively a big incentive not to have children: they are too expensive. Trump has proposed a national on-line free university with degrees certified by the federal government. This may help. We could do the same in Canada.

On the other hand, free post-secondary education has done nothing to prevent birth rates from plummeting in Germany or Scandinavia. 

We must do something about no-fault divorce and child support. The current system is a major disincentive for men to marry and have children. Do so, and they have put a financial noose around their necks. Any woman can pull out at any time, and take all the children, half his income and assets with no responsibilities on her part.

It is perhaps to prevent such situations that, in Islam, a wife cannot divorce a husband; only the husband can initiate a divorce.

We might cap child support, and give whoever makes the larger income in the marriage, sole discretion whether to pay it, or take custody of the children. Otherwise we have slavery.

Unless both parties consent, we should require proof of abuse, adultery, or abandonment in order to get a divorce. Without this, marriage is a uniquely unenforceable contract. Either party can leave the moment it is to their advantage to do so. This is not an atmosphere in which it is safe to raise children.

A no-brainer: abortion should be illegal.

We must also go back to respecting the family as a self-governing unit. We have also overburdened parents by not allowing them to discipline their children—for example, anti-spanking laws—while at the same time holding them legally responsible for the actions of their children. Parents have lost custody for not agreeing to having their child transition to a different sex. Schools ask kids to spy on their parents; and reserve the right not to advise parents of what their children do at school. A woman was recently arrested for allowing her ten-year-old to walk to the store alone. 

This is a tough one: I know only too well that families can be abusive.

But there is a solution to this, which does not discourage adults from having children. Bring back the orphanages. Bring back the residential schools. End child labour laws. End minimum wage laws. Open the monasteries and convents. All of these were paths for children to escape from abusive families; and for adults, too, who wanted to escape parenthood. They have been systematically closed off. We need to open them again. This would dramatically lower the risk of bearing children.

Are orphanages or residential schools cruel? Is child labour for low pay cruel? What if we compare them to the alternative: an abusive family, never being born, or resorting to crime or child prostitution? 

No doubt many children suffered in orphanages and residential schools: but when one trained economist did a comparative study, he actually found that life outcomes for kids raised in orphanages in the US were actually better on just about all measures than for the general population.

Of course, doing all this will require about a 180 degree pivot in our thinking. We are always too slow to change our course. But then, look how quickly we pivoted from alarm at overpopulation to alarm at underpopulation. Look how quickly we pivoted from mass immigration being beyond criticism to alarm at mass immigration. Or from alarm at global cooling to alarm at global warming. 

So it goes, as Kurt Vonnegut would say.

Why Poetry?

 

John Keats.

Up into the 1960s, poetry sold better than prose fiction in Canada. Now nobody buys poetry books. What happened?

To be fair, all the other arts are also moribund. Yes, a kind of prose fiction and a kind of movie and a kind of pop music sells, but it is all entertainment, not art.

Meantime, we have seen spiraling rates of depression, homelessness, drug use, suicide.

These two trends are related.

Poetry, and the other arts, bring meaning. Man needs meaning. He does not live by bread alone. Poetry takes the brute events of life and makes them meaningful. 

Beauty is the perception of meaning.

By beauty, I do not mean mere prettiness. I mean what can produce the aesthetic experience, the OMG moment.

True beauty requires the sublime. It must convey some deep truth. 

It must also be in line with moral goodness; it must be just.

The three transcendentals are the irreducible source of all value: truth, goodness or justice, and beauty. This is what poetry, and art, expresses; and leads the reader to, like a torch held high, like a lighthouse on a hill.

The existence of each transcendental implies the other two. You can’t ever have just one. Beauty requires truth; truth is always beautiful. “Truth is beauty, beauty truth: that is all ye know, and all ye need to know.” Similarly, an injustice or evil act cannot be beautiful. 

This is what life is for. We are created to seek the transcendentals, and to create art.

In recent generations, we no longer produce or appreciate poetry because we have given up the search for truth. Worse: we are in full flight from truth. Modernism was a cry of despair, that we had lost access to truth and beauty somehow; all the old verities were gone. “The ceremony of innocence is drowned.” We kept waiting for Godot, and he did not come.

Postmodernism is something else: it is a declaration that there is no truth, no beauty, and anyone asserting such a thing should be condemned and hounded out of polite company.

This view is the death of art. It is giving up on meaning.

And suicide, drug addiction, depression, mental illness, and a war of all against all are the inevitable consequence. If there is no meaning, everyone just grabs what they want for the moment.

This is why I write: to try to shine a beacon through this wasteland of relativism and despair. To set off a flare.

Democracy Has Come

 

Leonard Cohen died November 7, 2016, the day before Donald Trump was first elected. Cohen’s son Adam says his father predicted Trump would win. Everyone thought Clinton would. Why did he think so?

Like any great poet, Cohen was a prophet. He saw deeply into the zeitgeist; he could see which way things were heading. In 1992, he put out an explicitly prophetic album, “The Future.” In in he traced two possible paths: a dark one: “I’ve seen the future, baby. It is murder”; and a hopeful one: “Democracy is coming—to the USA.” It was, clearly, a warning.

It does seem America and the world has been going down the dark path traced in “The Future”:

Give me absolute control
Over every living soul
And lie beside me, baby
That's an order
Give me crack and anal sex…

This sounds like the obsession with power relationships and self-indulgence that underlies woke culture.

Destroy another fetus now
We don't like children anyhow
I've seen the future, baby
It is murder

That hardly needs comment, does it?

On the other hand, surely Trump’s election was and is the second path, the path of light. Cohen saw that the US was, as of 1992, not truly democratic. That new truer democracy is the “populism” Trump and Elon Musk’s X represents.

It's coming from the silence
On the dock of the bay
From the brave, the bold, the battered
Heart of Chevrolet

This predicts a return from multicultural idolatries to traditional American culture. Make America great again!

It's coming from the sorrow in the street
The holy places where the races meet
From the homicidal bitchin'
That goes down in every kitchen
To determine who will serve and who will eat.

The holy places—sounds like a predicted religious revival. The more so since he also says it comes “From the staggering account/In the Sermon on the Mount.” In “The Future,” he laments, “Give me Christ or give me Hiroshima!” 

And this stanza also sounds like a rejection of feminism and sexual politics, the great example of the woke power dynamics.

He also says true democracy is coming from “the ashes of the gay.” This might mean gay martyrdom. Or it might mean gay politics become a spent force.

Democracy is, Cohen says, coming to America first partly because of America’s cultural dominance, partly because the US system is flexible. It has “the machinery for change.” And partly because “It’s here the family’s broken.” This sounds like a need to return to “family values.”

I wonder if Cohen died in peace, seeing clearly that the US and the world was going to choose the better path after all.

The Truth about Religious Extremism

 

Religious extremist

Friend Xerxes has just put out a column based on an old headline: “Half of Canadians consider religion damaging.”

He agrees. Religion is a source of harm; religious certainty is a bad thing.

So how did almost half of us arrive at such a novel and wrongheaded idea?

I trace it to 9/11 in particular, and to a lesser degree the troubles in Northern Ireland. As he notes, accusing Buddhism or Judaism or Quakerism of being harmful seems ridiculous. But surely Islam, with the terrorism? And then, we cannot cite only Islam, we’d be accused of racism; so we think as well of the Irish troubles, and generalize, and say “religion.”

The misperception is exacerbated by the press constantly pushing the notion that Islamist  terrorists are “extremists”: the problem is supposedly that they believe their religion too fervently. They are too sure of things.

But if a too-devout belief in Islam is the problem, why was the Muslim world not generating terror until relatively recently? Why were Muslim states relatively sanguine under European/Christian rule, French, English, and Italian, during the 19th and early 20th centuries? Why were significant Jewish, Christian, Yazidi, and Parsi minorities able to live in peace and harmony in Muslim-dominated areas for centuries, until just recently? The Muslim Brotherhood was formed only in 1928; Al Qaeda in 1988; ISIS in 2006. Even the Palestinian resistance to Israel was not Islam-based until recently: the PLO was Marxist; the more radical PFLP was led by a Christian. Is it plausible that the Muslim world has recently become more certain of their faith? What dynamic would have caused this?

It is obviously the opposite: increasing globalization and increasing secularism in the dominant West has caused Muslims to doubt, to lose certainty. This has caused the growing violence.

When one looks at the background of actual Muslim terrorists, one discovers they do not come from a religious background. Childhood friends or older acquaintances always remark that they were never devout, nor from a religious family; they were recently “radicalized.” They are commonly Westernized, often educated in the West. Bin Ladin himself was an engineer. Al Qaeda ran houses of prostitution for their fighters.

Living and teaching in the Arabian Gulf, I found I could count on goodwill from any student or fellow faculty member with a full beard; this showed they were a committed Muslim. Any hostility to the foreigner or non-Muslim or Westerner that there was came from the clean-shaven secularized locals.

People similarly overlook, when considering the Irish Troubles, that Sinn Fein and the IRA were Marxist organizations, hostile to and generally condemned by the Catholic Church. The association with religion may have seemed clearer on the Protestant side; but anyone can declare himself a Protestant minister and form his own denomination, stealing the prestige of religion for his political agenda. 

This is a simple trick, used by Jim Jones, purely a Marxist, for his “People’s Temple,” or by Fred Phelps for his “Westboro Baptist Church.”

Islam has the same problem, as, like Protestantism, it lacks a recognized central authority. Any fraud can declare himself an Imam.

Nor, historically, can religion explain the longstanding tensions in Ireland. The English were just as determined to colonize Ireland and suppress its culture before the English Reformation. Religious difference was never more than an excuse.

What does religious extremism actually produce?

Those most committed to their religion, most convinced they know the truth with certainty, become friars and monks. Catholic, Orthodox, Hindu or Buddhist. Not a lot of violence coming from that cloister. Among Protestants, the most devout would be the Amish and the Mennonites. Not a lot of blood in the streets. Also, in their way, the Salvation Army.

It is only when you have doubts about your world view that you feel threatened by the mere existence of opposing views. Only then are you likely to resort to violence to impose your views. Relativism, not conviction, is the problem.

The poets, who see most deeply into the zeitgeist, rightly saw this at the outset the 20th century. Many of them lamented the rise of relativism and the decline of religious conviction. Kipling wrote: 

For heathen heart that puts her trust
  In reeking tube and iron shard,
All valiant dust that builds on dust,
  And, guarding, calls not Thee to guard;
For frantic boast and foolish word—
Thy Mercy on Thy People, Lord

In 1897, he saw the growing reliance on scientism instead of religion inevitably leading to dark places. His prediction came true in 1914, and in 1917, and in 1939, and in China, Cambodia, Korea, and too many other places since.

Yeats wrote, in 1919:

Turning and turning in the widening gyre   
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere   
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

Who is the falconer, the centre, but God? What is the ceremony of innocence, but conventional religion with its rituals?

And the harm is not limited only to violence. I blame relativism, the notion that there is no ultimate meaning to life, for the growing epidemic of drug use, suicide, depression, and mental illness. 

The media and the clerisy have done humanity untold harm with their propaganda campaign against “religious extremism.” Religious extremism is just what the world most desperately needs.