Pride at the Paris Olympics

 

The online media have been lighting up about the blasphemous opening ceremony for the Paris Olympics, that featured what seemed to be a mockery of the Last Supper featuring a blue Dionysus as Christ, served up like the Eucharist, and a set of trans and obese apostles, one with his genitals dangling and visible.

Let us be clear about one thing: there is a war between LGBTQ ideology and the Catholic Church; and it is not the Catholic Church that started it. I first encountered it, to my shock, when I ran into a group of gay demonstrators dressed in mock nuns’ habits protesting near a Toronto community centre run by the Church. Until then, I, a practicing Catholic raised in catholic schools and educated at theological colleges, had thought we were all on the same side.

The Catholic catechism, it is true, says homosexual sex is sinful. It holds all sex not open to the conception of children disordered and sinful. This includes masturbation, sex outside marriage, and sex inside marriage if contraception is used. There is nothing special there about gay sex. To make an exception for gay sex and say it is okay would be allowing it some special privilege. Why?

Many prominent homosexuals in recent history have been Catholic, including converts. Oscar Wilde. Tennessee Williams. Milo Yiannopoulos. Andy Warhol. Pim Fortuyn. Evelyn Waugh. W.H. Auden (Anglo-Catholic). Nobody thought until recently this was somehow incompatible.

As for transvestitism: it has always been an accepted part of Filipino culture, and the Philippines is one of the most Catholic nations on Earth. The Catholic catechism has nothing to say about it. Why would that be a sin?

This is to be distinguished from the new doctrine of “transgenderism,” in which people go in for physical mutilation and insisting they are actually literally the opposite sex. Self-mutilation and denial of physical reality is of course sinful, in this as in any case.

So the supposed opposition of Catholicism to LGBTQetc. is an invention of the LGBTQ lobby, of the modern left. It is an invented premise, invented as an excuse to attack Catholicism. Not in the interests of gays either: in the interests of pride and lust.

Catholic morality sets a high bar, calling us to be “perfect, as your father in heaven is perfect.” Of course, none of us is. We cannot claim righteousness. To do so is the sin of pride, and an automatic ticket to the Other Place. 

It is just this that the rainbow brigade demands: a celebration of pride, and pride in lust.

Cat Ladies

 

J.D. Vance, Trump’s VP pick, is being criticized in many quarters for a comment that the Democratic party is being run by “childless cat ladies who regret their life choices.” Some are demanding that Trump force him off the ticket as a result.

The reason everyone is so upset, of course, is the same reason they hate Trump. It is because he has hit the nail so squarely on the head. And the truth hurts.

I am sure everyone else knows, as I do, many older women without children who have begun to take in stray cats; whose lives seem to revolve around their furry children. It also seems self-evident that this is a compensation, that they would be happier with children of their own. A child is a much better companion than a cat.

Vance explicitly ruled out those who are childless through no choice of their own. But many women of recent generations, influenced by feminism, chose to put career over family, easy sex over commitment, and self over potential partner. They came to view men with suspicion, and repelled possible pairings. And now they are often alone, lacking purpose, and unfulfilled.

Having made such a bad fist of their own lives, should they be turned to for public leadership? Having displayed such selfishness in private life as not to put themselves out for partner or children, should they be entrusted with the public treasury? And shouldn’t we worry about Aesop’s principle of the fox who lost his tail? Misery loves company.

Of course the cat ladies shriek with anger. It is hurtful because it is true, and it forces them to admit they have destroyed their lives.

But there is a time to call out harmful delusions, for the sake of the next generations.

Facts and Opinions

 

A measure of how materialist our society has become: every textbook I have had to use  that teaches critical thinking distinguishes only between fact and opinion, which they correlate to “objective” and “subjective.” as though this is the only issue. The message is that only facts are certainly true.

There are many truths that are subjective, not facts.

 The first obvious example:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that ll men are created equal, and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

Facts are provable truths, objective truths. These truths are not provable, but self-evident. We know they are true. 

Another truth, the most certain of all, is that God exist. This is not a fact, even if there are mathematical proofs; it is a truth. Indeed, none of the truths of mathematics are facts. Facts are only probvisionally true; the truths of mathematics are absolute.

Then there are moral truths. Murder is wrong. You should do unto others as you would have them do to you. Truth is better than lies. These are not facts; but they are certain.

Beauty is better than ugliness. Also unprovable, but self-evident. 

And then there is the universe of emotional truths: that I love my wife, or my kids or country. These are truths, not opinions, although they will commonly appear in the texts wrongly as opinions. I can know with certainty that I love my wife, or my country. 

Doesn’t this illustrate how limiting, how damaging, materialism is? It reduces us to lizards, zombies, or robots, without emotions, without conscience, and without meaning to our lives.

Welcome to hell.

The Hellfire Club

 

I have heard both Vivek Ramaswamy and Jacob Rees-Mogg say recently that nobody is actually in control in Washington; there is nobody actually pulling the strings behind Joe Biden. Instead, it is a “mechanism,” according to Ramaswamy; Rees-Mogg says a “blob.” 

How does tis mechanism work, though? How does a blob coordinate the actions of many on many levels?

I think behind it, there must be something like a Hellfire Club; of which we actually heard in the Jeffrey Epstein revelations. We even know what they’re up to: the main lure is sex, especially sex with minors. Once someone has been compromised by participating, there is really no further need for coordination. The need to protect all other members, and the secrets of the club, becomes automatic, and dictates the necessary actions at all levels.

And this must be why they are so determined to stop Trump: he is not compromised. He is not a member of the club. In power, he might blow the lid off. It is not about political ideology. Trump is only a moderate Republican. They are similarly afraid of RFK Jr. on the left; or Tulsi Gabbard. 

I believe they killed Stanley Kubrick for obliquely revealing their existence in Eyes Wide Shut. Of course, they killed Jeffrey Epstein. They will try to kill any non0member who gets close to the highest levels of power, or anyone who, once a member, looks likely to reveal any secrets. 

Surely this will all come out soon. It is getting too obvious that this is going on.

It Needs to Be Said: Women Are Beautiful but Crazy

 

Can we all agree that, on average, women are more beautiful than men/ 

Even the question seems absurd. Obviously, yes.

And that women have a stronger understanding and appreciation for beauty? 

And this is true even though some individual men can be strikingly handsome. This is true even though some individual male artists can produce unspeakable beauty in their works. 

Even when this is so—take a visit to your local art gallery. Whom do you see there, admiring this art? Mostly women.

Since this is uncontroverslal, that women are more beautiful than men, it should also be uncontroversial that men on average have a stronger grip than women on what is true. There are three transcendent values, the good, the true, and the beautiful. Women guide men on the beautiful, men guide women on the truth.

Note that women traditionally can become hysterical, delusional. Even the word is subtly gendered. Among societies that believe in spirit possession, the most common victim is a young woman. 

It has long been understood, and shown by proper scientific studies  that men are better at navigating than women. Men navigate by compass direction, by absolute distance, and by map. Women navigate by familiar landmarks, number of steps, or by asking directions. Their understanding is highly situational. 

I used to have fun in my classes by asking all the women, first, to point north. Almost none could. It looked random. Then I asked the men. Most could. 

This suggests a broader difference: men seek and are aware of the absolute truth directly. Women in general rely on men to know what it is.

This is what makes male-female companionship both possible and necessary. The woman brings beauty to the home; and the man brings directional guidance. This is why two women in the same home find it much harder to get along.

Two men have less problem, since they can be expected to both see the same truths. But the home will be a mess.

It also means that a woman without a man is likely to go off the rails. A woman needs a man not like a fish needs a bicycle, but like bicycle needs a steering mechanism. Left alone, women are like a runaway garden hose, thrashing around for meaning.

This means that female CEOs are usually a bad idea. There are magnificent exceptions; one thinks of Margaret Thatcher. But more often, they are easily distracted from the mission by matters like DEI or what colour drapes the office needs. They can fuss about trees and let the forest burn. They can worry about putting agents on a sloped roof, and leave the candidate unprotected.

This is surely why Saint Paul said women should not speak at services; why he said their path of virtue was to obey their husbands. This is surely why Jesus chose all male apostles.

 You think God did not know what he was doing?

Letting women take the lead is the first sin in the Book of Genesis; it led to all the catastrophes to follow. Contrast to Mary, who said instead, “behold the handmaid of the Lord. Let it be done to me according to your word.” 

The same motif appears in Greek myth: the story of Pandora’s box. I have seen it in North American Indian lore. In gnostic legend. And a Chinese student, commenting on Lady MacBeth, reports it is in the Chinese tradition as well.

It is inconceivable folly to ignore here the wisdom of our ancestors.

This Is Shocking. I Can't Say More than This

 

Quick Comments in Time of Turmoil

 

The news has been coming too fast for commentary.

I think J.D. Vance is a great pick. Trump has a sense of the public mood, and I think he has picked well. With Vance, he is getting out ahead of the rapidly building white working class backlash against DEI. That is becoming the next big thing. Picking Rubio or Scott or Gabbard or some of the other possibles would have been conforming to the DEI agenda, if inadvertently. Not the message for this time.

Vance emerges from the same social space as the Canadian truckers and the Dutch farmers. It is their time to roar. They will roar. And it is better for everybody if their spokesmen are peacefully elected to government, before matters must be settled in the streets and in the fields.

Vance is also an accomplished writer. Although few seem to realize it, artistic talent, especially talent as a communicator, a writer or actor, is an important qualification for political leadership. I point to Reagan, Disraeli, Churchill, Trump himself, John Paul II. Vance could eventually become a historic president. As Trump already is.

On a different but related matter, it is generally good advice, as he saying goes, ot to ascribe to malice what can be adequately accounted for by incompetence. However, given the lengths the other side has visibly gone already to prevent the re-election of Donald Trump, we have every reason to believe either the assassination attempt on Trump a couple of days go was an inside job, or else the lax security, at least, was deliberate.

God help us all if they try again and succeed. Trump’s survival this time looks like a genuine miracle. I would not be the first to say that God seems to have a special cordon of protection around children, drunks, and the USA. George Washington survived an eerily similar near miss at the first battle of the French and Indian Wars.

Are Americans God’s chosen people? It seems to me plausible enough, on the same grounds that the Israelites were and are. The US Declaration of Independence, and the principles it represents, are a light unto the nations.

Inductive and Deductive

 

Oldthinkers unbellyfeel Ingsoc.

Friend Xerxes, as a gentleman of the left, may have put his finger on why our society is falling apart. He heralds the supposed good news that science has recently discredited the whole idea of “top-down” reasoning—that is, deduction. Without giving details, he thinks this is because of what quantum physics posits about subatomic particles. Actually, I think he has this backwards: quantum physics actually discredits the usual scientific “bottom-up” approach. Which means, drawing general conclusions from observation. Quamtum physics argues that observation does not work at this level.

Science has always been “bottom up”—that is, inductive. Philosophy, religion and mathematics are deductive, working from first principles down to the specific. Xerxes prefers science, apparently. I gather everyone on the left does. Math is racist, after all. 

One problem with inductive reasoning is that it can never arrive at truth. It can only draw provisional conclusions, which may be disproven in the next moment by some “black swan” event.

Another problem is that it cannot arrive at any concept of value, of what is good or bad. It cannot distinguish between right and wrong. 

This makes it a useful tool, but a terrible master.

And our modernist culture has elevated it to our religion.

No wonder, then, that we begin to doubt, with the postmodernists, whether there is any reality at all underlying mere opinion. No wonder there is a crisis of meaninglessness leading to drug addiction, mental illness, suicide, and despair. No wonder that we object to conventional morality and to being “judgemental,” and social morals are collapsing. No wonder modern psychiatry is left to define sanity as merely thinking the same way as everyone ese, making dissent madness—an obvious logical fallacy, but they have nowhere else to go for any standard of truth or right.

Xerxes has decided that because it is “top down,” moving from the general to the particular, deduction supports and leads to authoritarianism. He heralds accordingly the supposedly new inductive approach as leading to a new age of human liberation.

Yay. Now men can become women and if math is hard, you ignore it.

But this, that deductive reason leads to authoritarianism, is demonstrably the opposite of the truth. When you remove judgement, there is no way to peacefully resolve disagreements. Bullying and force are all there is. No wonder then that so much of modern thought, from feminism to intersectionality, is about “power relationships” and “power imbalances’ and power. Whoever has power simply uses it to impose their will and their interests; and that is taken as a given.

There is no way, then, of course, to end power imbalances. All you can do is put another group in power. Everyone fights to the death for the crest of the hill. And in the long run everyone loses and dies.

Those political philosophies that have built on an inductive, “scientific” approach have been the most authoritarian in history: Fascism, Nazism, and Marxism. Deductive regimes, even at the most authoritarian, like Iran, Spain under the Inquisition, or Saudi Arabia, are mild by comparison.

Liberal democratic principles, on the other hand, are entirely deductive. This is clearly expressed in the US Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, and endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights. That among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness….”

The idolatry of science has our tail spinning into havoc and madness. Xerxes, unknowingly, suggests why.

The Statue of Aboriginality

 

In 1909, there was a serious proposal to build a monument to the American Indian in New York Harbour, fifteen feet higher than the Statue of Liberty. It was serious enough that construction began; with much public support. It ultimately fizzled out when WWI came, causing a bronze shortage. 

I mention this because it shows how fallacious the idea is that American Indians have been historically discriminated against. The truth is the exact reverse: they have always been idealized and idolized. But this has not been good for them. It is rather like what happens when you spoil a child: they become dependent.

It is true that, in the US, encroaching settlement made their traditional way of life obsolete. This has never been true in Canada—only a small  fraction of the actual land mass or hunting area has ever been settled. But even in the case of the US, they face a common dilemma: there is no call for coopers or blacksmiths or telegraph operators any more either. One retrains.

How the Light Gets In

 

(7) By reason of the exceeding greatness of the revelations, that I should not be exalted excessively, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me, that I should not be exalted excessively. (8) Concerning this thing, I begged the Lord three times that it might depart from me. (9) He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Most gladly therefore I will rather glory in my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest on me. (10) Therefore I take pleasure in weaknesses, in injuries, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then am I strong.

This, from 2 Corinthians, was the second reading at Mass last Sunday. It is traditional for gay advocates to take Paul’s reference to a “thorn in the flesh” to refer to homosexual cravings.

It seems to me this reading is not just random, but improbable. Why would he refer to a temptation as if a physical pain? Whenever one wants to interpret something in a text metaphorically, one must first somehow exclude a more literal meaning. We must assume a “thorn in the flesh” describes a physical pain of some sort. Perhaps kidney stones, or gall stones, would be a more plausible guess.

Can such things come from Satan? In Paul’s day, it was taken for granted that they could. This is why Jesus could heal physical illnesses by driving out demons. The desert fathers and the Buddhist sages tell us that Satan/Mara comes first to tempt, but, if we resist temptation, then assaults us directly. He torments.

There is a truth here known to mystics and shamans. When a shaman takes a trance journey, he commonly harms himself physically in some way on his return to normal consciousness. Patty Duke says she used to need to be stuck hard on the back to pull her out of a “manic” episode. This is somehow necessary for a safe landing back in the world of the physical senses. Hydrotherapy--a cold dose of water splashed on someone acting hysterical—might work the same way. 

It may also be why, proverbially, you have to suffer to sing the blues; every act of creation comes, as I think Shelley put it, like a pearl comes to an oyster. It coalesces around some source of pain. Inspiration, whether aesthetic or more directly religious, comes balanced with some pain or weakness. “There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.”  

We may not know why, but it is so.

The Only Sane People in the World

 

I have lived in a number of countries around the world. One thing I have learned from that—the main thing—is that everyone is insane.

This should not be surprising. Every religion tells us so. Truth, enlightenment, is revealed only to a few. It might come as a surprise only if you buy into modern “scientific” psychology. Lacking any standard for truth or reality, it merely defines “sane” as “having the majority opinion.” That obviously does not work. It is a recognized logical fallacy: ad populum.

We all live on delusions. Francis Bacon classified the common sources centuries ago, and founded empirical science as a way to break through. It has not worked. Churchill once said something like, “Most people, if they stumble upon the truth, will just pick themselves up and dust themselves off.” Bertrand Russel once said, “Most of us would sooner die than know the truth. And most of us do.”

One of the standard sources of delusion, as Bacon shrewdly classifies them, is “idols of the tribe.” These are delusions shared by a social group, the members of which can easily mutually reinforce each other in the delusion. It is hard in isolation to persist in a delusion.  When everyone around you is agreeing with you, it is far easier. These delusions of the tribe are actually encouraged by psychology. Shared delusions tend to define a nation.

Living in another country, especially one with a significantly different culture, reveals these delusions. If unreflective, an expat will after a few months come to the conclusion that they are all mad here. If he is more thoughtful, and more self-reflective, he may conclude instead that he is mad. If more reflective still, he will realize that both are—or at least, he too had been, on this or that matter, before now. 

All that is a lead-in to this: not all nationalities are equally mad. In my still limited experience, North Americans, at least in these times, are profoundly mad. Madder than hatters. Thank me for sharing. The Chinese can always be counted on to be mad. The French are certainly mad. We all know about the Germans and their fits of madness. The Japanese are mad, Koreans are mad. These are beautiful cultures, perhaps the most impressive cultures, cultures in which education is highly valued. And one would expect education to be a cure for madness. Yet it can as easily be the reverse: it can be an education into the shared delusions. And great art can be the individual’s desperate attempt to break through the matrix of thyeir culture. Like the sand in the oyster’s shell that forms the pearl of great price.

 Italians are far less prone to be mad. Greeks are less prone to group madness. This despite their impressive cultures. But perhaps too, it explains why they are not as creative as they once were.

I probably can’t be objective about the Irish, but I think they are uncommonly sane.

But the sanest group of people I have ever had to deal with—and I have dealt with them quite a bit, largely for this reason—are the Filipinos. They are on the whole profoundly sensible, always with their two flat feet on the ground. Among other things, this makes them, contrary to what seems the stereotype, quite unromantic. They are, on the other hand, religious, and take seriously the other world. Being practical and non-delusional means you do take account of the spiritual world. 

Materialism is the greatest of our North American delusions.

No Irish Need Apply

 

The racial discrimination in Canada—and the US and Britain too—has become more egregious now than it ever was in the days of the Civil Rights marches. Today I note this line in a communication from the League of Canadian Poets about an upcoming contest:

“Each submission much be accompanied by an entry fee of $20. Discounted entry fees ($5) are available to Black, Indigenous, racialized, and LGBTQI2S+ poets.”

Such statements are  common now. They are blatant violations of both the US Bill of Rights and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Which shows the sad truth that such charters in the end only protect already-favoured groups. What is needed is a change in hearts. They are in open violation of the principles of Martin Luther King Jr., that we must judge one another not by the colour of our skins, but by the content of our character—the same moral Jesus gives us in the parable of the Good Samaritan.  They are open violations of the principle on which the US, and modern liberal democracy, was founded, that “all men are created equal,” and have the right to equal protection under the law. But that is another example of how such high-sounding principles end up protecting only already-favoured groups. Somehow the US, demanding equality for themselves vis a vis England’s ruling classes, saw no immediate need to free their slaves. 

We thought we had gotten beyond all this in the 1960s; it has all come raging back. It leads to the conclusion from such bitter experience that all people are inherently racist and xenophobic. This is a tendency we must all consciously fight against, as we must always fight against aspects of our animal nature. We are herd animals. Small children will often show a bad reaction to an unfamiliar skin colour; as a dog will. It is a survival instinct to be suspicious of the outsider, the stranger. Couple to that the universal need for scapegoats.

If we forget it, or, yet more stupidly, start claiming that only one particular racial group is subject to racist feelings, we end up doing horrible things to one another. We end up in Holocausts.

On the Fly

 

Events are moving so fast now that I suspect nobody has tome to read commentary instead of watch the news unfold; and I do not have time to write commentary.

At the moment, it looks as though Biden is going to step down in favour of Kamala Harris. The Conservatives are going to suffer a historic loss in Britain tomorrow, and Reform will outpoll them. LePen will fall just short ofr a majority in France. Justin Trudeau will shuffle Freeland out of the Finance Ministry, bring in Carney, and stick it out for now.

But that’s just the latest rumours I’m reading, like everybody else.

Just about anything can happen.

Desiderata

 

Whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

We are going through hourly political chaos, but the happy truth is that we are managing, it seems, to make the necessary changes, to dissipate all the public rage, in a reasonably orderly fashion, without the system breaking down. 

The issue is summarized well by Reform’s deputy leader, Ben Habib: it is bureaucratic government against popular, democratic government. The bureaucrats are now losing everywhere.

The British disaffected have Nigel Farage, an effective figure to really around. The bureaucratic state has been using dirty tricks against him, but it does not look as though they will be able to pull it off. He’s not going to win the election coming in a couple of days, but he will change and quite likely control the political conversation over the next few years. He may crush the Conservative Party and emerge as the obvious alternative next time.

The Tories are arguing at the doorstep that if Labour gets the huge majority projected, they will be in power for a generation. The opposite is as likely. When parties get huge majorities, they are heavy with disaffected backbenchers who cannot all be given posts. They almost always fracture into infighting. See how quickly the Tories have fallen from their big majority four years ago. 

In Canada, Trudeau should be smoothly replaced by Poilievre’s Conservatives, channelling the anger in a mainstream party. Canada is, as usual, more orderly than anyone in this revolution.

The likelihood, of course, is that Poilievre’s Conservatives, if they get the projected big majority, will also fracture. But in the meantime, some steam will be let off.

France just voted strongly for the Ralliement National in the first round of legislative polling; the rest of Europe is quickly going anti-woke.

And the US, of course, has Trump. He now seems a shoo-in to win the presidency back. The lawfare against him got severely set back by the new Supreme Court decision that came down today. And the Supreme Court has also struck a blow directly against the bureaucratic state with their recent decision to overturn Chevron.

Everything seems to be going in the right direction. And it is hard not to see God’s hand in it. The future seems clear.

The Carney Is in Town

 

Man temporarily dismounted from his white horse.

Yesterday, we wrote a little about the chaos among the Democrats in the U.S. over their leadership. A simultaneous crisis is underway among Canadian Liberals. They have just lost one of the three to five safest Liberal seats in the country, Toronto-St. Paul’s, in a byelection. Their polling is underwater somewhere in Hudson’s Bay. What can they do?

My own local MP, Wayne Long, has just openly called for Trudeau to step down. But the Canadian system is not like the British system. The party leader must sign the nomination papers for all local candidates. That makes him or her a dictator within the party: any sign of disloyalty means the local member is out at the next election. This is very unlike the way the Westminster system is supposed to run; properly, the party leader serves at the pleasure of his or her caucus. After all, the people vote for their local members, not the prime minister. This Westminster system allowed Britain to quickly replace Chamberlain with Churchill in the crisis at the beginning of the Second World War. It could instantly solve America’s problem with Joe Biden’s senility. Losing it also loses the entire point of having debates over legislation in the House of Commons; members cannot vote their conscience. They are just expensive trained seals. 

Something like the Westminster system has been revived in the Canadian Conservative Party, thanks to the efforts of Michael Chong. Without it, they would still be stuck with Erin O’Toole, instead of Pierre Poilievre, as leader,

As a result of this Liberal dictatorship, MP’s do not dare come out against the leader. Wayne Long was able to, because he is not running again in any case. And because he has an independent profile back home. Rumour has it that a majority of Liberal members actually want Trudeau to go. But they do not dare raise their hands. All they can do is vote against their own leader in a confidence vote—leading to an election in which they would be barred from running—or cross the floor and join another party.

Trudeau has no intention, it seems, of resigning. Rumour has it that he plans a cabinet shakeup to try to get the poll numbers back up. He wants to sacrifice his finance minister and deputy Prime Minister, Chrystia Freeland, scapegoating her for the taxes and rising cost of living that has queered Canadians on him. This is, interestingly, a tactic favoured by his reputed father, Fidel Castro: blame the economists for supposedly giving bad advice. Then Trudeau’s rumoured plan is to bring in Mark Carney as the new finance minister, as part of a wider cabinet shakeup. Freeland, after all, had no background in finance, business, or economics; she was a journalist. Carney has sterling credentials, literally--as in ponds sterling-- a banker and a former governor of both the Bank of Canada and Bank of England. He might calm the public and give the government credibility. Folks might believe better times were ahead, if they just stuck with the gummint.

Many have pointed out a problem with this plan. Carney has no seat in parliament. All the commentators I have heard or read seem to think this is a constitutional requirement for a cabinet appointment.

It is not. 

Senators can be appointed to cabinet. Justin Trudeau can appoint senators. Pierre Trudeau, wanting cabinet representation from the Prairie provinces, and lacking any M.P.’s, appointed Hazen Argue from the Senate as minister for the Canadian Wheat Board. Appointing from the House of Lords is fairly common in Britain; David Cameron is currently serving as foreign secretary from the House of Lords.

So Trudeau could simply appoint Carney to the Senate. Problem solved.

He does not even need to do that. There is precedent for appointing a member of the general public to the Cabinet, on the understanding that they will run for election within a reasonable time. Pierre Trudeau appointed Pierre Juneau to Cabinet from outside Parliament in 1975.

Since the next election is relatively close in any event, and there is no written law on the matter, only convention, Trudeau could appoint Carney to cabinet on Carney’s public promise to run in that election.

So the Carney plan could work. 

Would Carney want to do it?

Would it save the Liberals?

I think he wants it.

I don’t think it can save the Liberals.

But it may be their best shot. 

Mostly on the US Debate

 

Events are moving quickly; this is not a quiet summer. The Tories in the UK are in a panic. Reform is in a panic. The Republicans in France are in a panic. The Democrats in the US are in a panic. Things are almost moving too fast for commentary. What I say now may be obsolete in a few hours.

In the US, even all the left-wing commentators have turned on Joe Biden. His performance in the debate was historically bad. The best they can muster is the claim that, while Biden was incoherent. Trump was lying about everything. 

They never cite any particular lie. That perhaps says everything.

I did track down a list on CNN’s web site:

Trump: “Hard to believe, they have some states passing legislation where you can execute the baby after birth. It’s crazy.”

Trump went on to cite to the former governor of Virginia, Ralph Northram. Here’s what Northram actually said, referring to his proposed legislation:

“The infant would be delivered, the infant would be kept comfortable, the infant would be resuscitated if that's what the mother and the family desired, and then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother.”

But that legislation was, in the end, voted down in the legislature.

There were other close calls in New York and California, but the bills were amended before being passed.

So Trump was not correct. Directionally true, perhaps, as his supporters often say, but an exaggeration. But it might also be unfair to characterize it as a deliberate lie; Trump was speaking without notes. He may only have been foggy on the details. “Have tried to pass” would have been correct.

Trump: “I say, let the states decide. This is — every legal scholar wanted this to be where abortion should be.”

And of course, not EVERY legal scholar wanted the states to decide on abortion. To begin with, obviously, the justices of the Supreme Court count as legal scholars, and a majority of them voted for Roe v. Wade fifty years ago. A minority voted to keep Roe V. Wade last year. 

But given that the strict literal sense of the claim was obviously false, surely it was clear to everyone that Trump was not speaking literally, but using the common exaggeration, as in “everybody knows.”

The network counts as a lie Trump’s claim that there were no terrorist attacks during his presidency: “we didn’t have an attack for four years.”

CNN then cites an attack in New York that killed eight people in 2017, right after his election; and an attack by a lone gunman that killed three soldiers at an army base in Florida in 2019.

Another case of Trump being directionally correct, but exaggerating. He did not mean literally “none.” Just as we might say, “nobody loves a rainy day,” without expecting to be challenged with an example of someone who does.

They also count as a lie Trumps’ claim that the 2020 election was “rigged” or “stolen.” Which is, at a minimum, a legitimate opinion. 

And they counted Trump’s claim that Biden got money from China as a lie because it was presented “with no evidence.” There certainly is evidence of this; although it has not (yet?) been proven in a court of law. 

And the commentators never point out that, apart from not making sense, Biden told many lies. As, to be fair, all politicians do, pretty much all the time. Yet, mysteriously, it is only Trump who is ever accused of this. Biden actually claimed that there were fewer illegals crossing the border now than when Trump left office, and that the numbers are declining. He claimed to have gotten inflation down from where it was under Trump. There was essentially no inflation under Trump. He claimed that Trump initiated the policy of “children in cages,” which was inherited from the Democratic administration in which Biden was vice-president. He claimed that there were people wearing swastikas marching in Charlottesville, and that Trump had called them “fine people.” This has even been debunked by left-wing Snopes.

And so it goes.

Surely Biden now has no chance against Trump. And there is no good way for party insiders and powers to swap him out at this late date.

They did this to themselves, by forcing RFK Jr. out of the primaries and out of the party. Were RFK coming into the convention with a pledged minority of delegates, they could have plausibly coalesced around him at the last minute.

But even if the convention were to turn to someone other than Biden, the backroom powers have tied their own hands. The convention is scheduled for so late in the season that, if the nominee turns out to be anyone other then Biden, it will be too late to get them on the ballot in at least the critical swing state of Ohio.

Bottom line: Biden is not the only incompetent in power on the left.

Why We Are Here

 “The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.”—Genesis 2, verse 15,

This is the verse of the Bible in which we are told why we were created. We were created to be gardeners.

There are two kinds of gardens: vegetable gardens, and scenic gardens. There are gardens to produce food, and there are gardens to produce beauty.

There was clearly no need, in this case, to work to produce food. This was the Garden of Eden. All plants there, but one, were edible: “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food.” There was no reason to worry for the welfare of animals either. They too could, the next verse specifies, eat every plant, and did not eat one another. The lion lay down with the lamb. The need to labour for food, clothing, or shelter came only with the Fall: 

“Cursed is the ground because of you;
    through painful toil you will eat food from it
    all the days of your life.
...By the sweat of your brow
    you will eat your food
until you return to the ground,”

It would be tautological, in any case, to create man only to feed man.

Therefore, our life purpose must be to create beauty, as in a flower garden. Our job is to take the raw material God gave us, “nature,” and transform it into art.

We obviously do not do this by leaving it alone, as in a nature preserve. And it is not about advancement in material comforts. Life is about making beauty.

The Revolution Has Begun

Things are coming unglued for the ruling elites. People no longer trust them. This is largely due to the growth of social media: they can no longer force discussion and information within prescribed bounds. This is of course why they have been censoring so openly recently. But that has always been a rear-guard action.

We saw a somewhat similar ungluing back in the 1960s, prompted I think by the nuclear threat and the Kennedy assassination. People began to suspect that idiots were in charge. Or dark forces.

And that, for those of us who remember, was a time of chaos. Reagan, Thatcher, and Pope John Paul II put things back together.

But this is bigger.

The evidence coming out that the establishment and establishment media lied about everything during the Covid pandemic seems to have been a watershed. Yes, it did leak from a government lab. Yes, it was lab-created. Yes, it was funded in part by the US government. No, wearing masks was not effective. No, social distancing was not effective. No, the vaccines did not stop the spread. No, they were not safe and effective. Yes, ivermectin did work against the virus. Yes, the jump in mortality rates since is due to the vaccine.

Even at the time, the pandemic seemed to me like a flash of lightning showing us all where the zombies were.

Who will ever trust government again?

Now all heck is breaking loose. The woke are waking up.

Mass immigration used to be a third rail issue. Nobody dared object, because they would be called racist. Trump broke the seal with regards to illegal immigration in 2016. Now it has spread to legal immigration as well. It is a key issue in Europe, looking as though it will bring down the governments of the UK and France within the next few weeks. In Canada, Pierre Poilievre has finally calculated it is worth saying, in French and in Quebec, that he will lower immigration levels. Until now, he had been sidestepping the issue. 

“It's going to be much lower, especially for temporary immigration. It is impossible to invite 1.2 million new people to Canada every year when you build 200,000 homes. That's impossible. There is no room. Quebec is at the breaking point.”

People are now also speaking openly against multiculturalism, defying the inevitable accusations of racism. Only a few years ago, Don Cherry was fired for saying everyone should wear the poppy. Now Rishi Sunak is being condemned everywhere for leaving D-Day ceremonies early. How could he? That is some measure of how much how quickly the political climate has changed. 

Even though, awkwardly, disastrously, multiculturalism is enshrined in the Canadian constitution.

“Climate change” is the next likely pin to fall. It was always an improbable claim. It was always based on “computer modelling,” not scientific evidence. Thirty years ago, when the average member of the public still imagined computers were magical, this sounded compelling. We are more sophisticated about computers now. The general public is also realizing that “fighting climate change” through ever growing taxes and regulations is costing a lot of money with no visible results, in a difficult economic time. It increasingly looks like it always really was: a power and money grab by the government bureaucracy.

I think the edifice of feminism is crumbling fast as well. It is now unfashionable on the left, who want to sacrifice it to trans rights, with which feminism conflicts. Others are seeing the effect of feminism in declining birth rates, declining marriage rates, men opting out of all relationships, and growing legions of bitter middle-aged women feeling deceived. There is worse yet to be uncovered.

Confidence in the public school system is already gone. Confidence in the academy is crumbling. Confidence in the objectivity and reliability of science itself is going. Peer review, we discover, does not work. Only certain areas of investigation get funded. Experiments are never reproduced, and when someone tries, they can’t be. Scientists are no longer looked on as semi-divine beings and moral examplars above suspicion of ulterior motives.

I suspect most importantly, atheism, which had become increasingly fashionable over the past 150 years or so, is crumbling. Darwinism, its modern intellectual underpinning, is crumbling. Freud and scientific psychology, religion’s intended “scientific” replacement, has already been pretty well discredited. This is the biggest and most far-reaching revolution currently underway.

Or maybe it is just me.

The Rage in Our Hearts

 

Asmodeus, the Demon of Wrath

I had been asked to review two short story manuscripts recently. Both had the same odd and disturbing flaw: they had the main character slaughter an animal, gratuitously, and in detail, early in the story. 

This did nothing to further the plot. Either incident could have been removed without affecting it; in fact, they distracted from it. 

If it was meant to establish character, it was bad practice: it alienated the reader from the protagonist. If the reader does not identify with the main character, they are no longer interested in what happens to them, and tune out. Even if you want to tell a sympathetic story of a killer, you start by showing them being nice to a puppy.

And what an odd thing for two random stories to have in common.

I suspect this shows what lurks in the hearts of men currently. When you compose a story, you start by letting your imagination run free. When these two authors did so, this is almost the first thing that came up.

Pent up male rage? That sounds plausible on its face, given how men are repressed currently. Both authors were young men. 

But rage does not work that way. It does not get stronger if not expressed. That’s Freud; Freud has been disproven. If you repress an emotion, it goes away. If you express it, it grows. Over time, it can become a settled vice—or virtue. 

Once it becomes a vice, it becomes part of our programming. When we let our minds go, it will come out, unbidden. Even, eventually, against our interest. It begins to seem to have a will of its own, which is why vices are traditionally imagined as demons. 

This is why, to be a good writer, you need to have nothing to hide; you need to be a fundamentally decent person. Artists are, in my personal experience, always naive innocents in person.

Yes, there are all those stories about bohemian types being libertines. I suspect this is to discredit the enterprise.  And often the writer or artist will play along with it, for cover. Jim Morrison was supposed to be the ultimate womanizer, for example. And yet—no paternity suits. I go with W.B. Yeats, who said you can either live the life of a poet, or be a poet, but you cannot do both. 

I think our society as a whole these days is nursing the demon of anger. It is behind all these claims of victimization and oppression. It is also nursing the demons of lust and pride. There are even parades.

The gravest sin any more is pointing out someone else’s sin.

The next worst sin is not sinning yourself.

And this may explain why the arts are moribund.

Tory Win in St. Paul's

 

I awoke this morning to the shocking news that the Conservatives had won Toronto-St. Paul’s. I had gone to bed thinking the Liberals had it in the bag. This is not good news for the Conservative Party.

They probably did not want to win it. The top Liberals flooded in to the riding to campaign. Pierre Poilievre stayed out, campaigning in Quebec instead. On the day of the vote, top Conservatives were all telling the media they had no chance. They clearly expected to lose; and Poilievre might have stayed away so as not to be personally tarnished by the loss. But this was also likely to depress their vote, making it more probable that they would.

Why woud they want to win in St. Paul’s? Perhaps a morale boost for the troops. But it would not change the power balance in the House. The danger is that it will force Justin Trudeau to resign as Liberal leader. I think the Conservatives are right if they think Trudeau is their biggest asset. Canadians are generally desperate for a chance to vote against him. I know I am. He should not be allowed to retire without a truly humiliating defeat, to discourage future prime ministers from following in his autocratic footsteps.

A new leader is unlikely to help the Liberals electorally. But this is almost a secondary consideration to me, and perhaps also to the Tories. Psychologically and on principle, they want the chance to defeat Justin Trudeau.