I enlarged some of the video Larry O’Connor used for clarity… see more here:
Author: Papa Giorgio
Thankfulness [Gratitude] Is the Lynchpin To Happiness/Joy
RUMBLE DESCRIPTION:
This is a short excerpt from a Dennis Prager “Fireside Chat” (Ep. 239 — Essential Lessons: Gratitude) as an addition to my turn at teaching a section for an early AM (weekly) book study at church. The book is John MacArthur’s “1 and 2 Thessalonians and Titus: Living Faithfully in View of Christ’s Coming,” my portion was chapter six.
The previous guys have always tried to get through all the questions in order, but we all bloviate a bit — I mean, it is a bunch of guys hanging together. So, I decided to — instead of going sequentially through the questions in the study book — camp out on a couple verses/topics. I made notes of where my thoughts were going from the text, which was 1st Thessalonians 5:12-28 (PDF)
But this audio served as an excellent addition to a point I was making, which is in verses:
16 Rejoice always
17 pray constantly
18 give thanks in everything …
I see these verses in similar fashion to the audio. The unthankful are not happy. And in the Christian faith, we have an awful lot to be thankful of. See my SEDERS post: “Keeping Our Christian Identity Through ‘Seders’“, especially points 4 and 5.
Here are some commentaries:
Thessalonians
16. Rejoice evermore] alway (R. V.)—same as in ch. 1:2. 2:16, &c. This seems a strange injunction for men afflicted like the Thessalonians (see ch. 1:6, 2:14, 3:2–4; 2 Ep. 1:4). But the Apostle had learnt, and taught the secret, that in sorrow endured for Christ’s sake there is hidden a new spring of joy. See Rom. 5:3–5, “Let us glory in our tribulations;” 2 Cor. 12:10; and the Beatitude of Christ in Matt. 5:10–12; also 1 Pet. 4:12–14.
This phrase supplied the keynote of St Paul’s subsequent letter, written from prison, to the Philippians (ch. 4:4, 5).
17. Pray without ceasing] Twice the Apostle has used this adverb (ch. 1:3, 2:13), referring to his own constant grateful remembrance of his readers before God. Numberless other objects occupied his mind during the busy hours of each day; and the Thessalonians could not be distinctly present to his mind in every act of devotion; still he felt that they were never out of remembrance, and thankfulness on their account mingled with and coloured all his thoughts and feelings at this time. In like manner Prayer is to be the accompaniment of our whole life—a stream ever flowing, now within sight and hearing, now disappearing from view, forming lie under-current of all our thoughts and giving to them its own character and tone.
18. In every thing give thanks] This again the Apostle taught by example as well as precept; see ch. 1:2; 3:9, 10; and comp. Ph. 4:6; Col. 4:2. “In everything,” even in persecution and shame, suffered for Christ’s sake; comp. Phil. 1:29, 2 Cor. 12:9, 10.
Prayer and Thanksgiving are the two wings of the soul by which it rises upward to God.
for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you] Rather, to you-ward (R. V.):—“You Thessalonian believers—so greatly afflicted and tempted to murmuring and despondency—are the special objects of this Divine purpose, whose attainment is made possible for you in Christ Jesus. God intends that your life should be one of constant prayer, constant joy and thanksgiving.” In ch. 3:3 it was said that the Thessalonians were “appointed” to their extraordinary sufferings (comp. ch. 4:3). Now the reason of this appointment is shown; it is that they may grow perfect in thankfulness, grateful for the bitter as well as for the sweet in their experiences,—for
“each rebuff
That turns earth’s smoothness rough,
Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand, bit go.”
Such cheerfulness of soul needs strong faith, and is won through hard trial. Rom. 5:3–5 supplies the reasoning by which tribulation is made matter of thanksgiving and the sorrows of the Christian are turned to songs of joy.—On Christ Jesus, see note to ch. 2:14.
George G. Findlay, The Epistles to the Thessalonians, with Introduction, Notes, and Map, The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1898), 119–120.
NUMBERS
The section of the book beginning with these verses and continuing into chapter 14 recounts the development of a spirit of discontentment among the people, and their consequent murmuring against Moses and against the Lord. This murmuring, we are meant to understand, became a continuing characteristic and had a cumulative effect. It was not merely that the people murmured once or twice. They developed a murmuring, complaining spirit, and it was this that came to a climax at Kadesh Barnea, when they failed at a critical time of opportunity. They were turned back by God into the wilderness, and kept there for forty years. Israel finally entered into the Promised Land, but that generation of Israel did not, and were not allowed to enter by God. The lesson is not that they were finally lost, but that they were disqualified in the purposes of God—a grim and solemn reality. This murmuring, complaining, critical spirit, it is clear, got into them, and did something to them, rendering them progressively incapable of rising to their divine calling until, at a moment of crisis, they crashed.
[….]
The fact that this next instance of murmuring follows immediately after the incident recorded in verses 1–3 may suggest, that “the unbelieving and discontented mass did not discern the chastising hand of God at all in the conflagration which broke out at the end of the camp, because it was not declared to be a punishment, and was not preceded by a previous announcement.” This seems quite likely; otherwise it would be necessary to interpret the murmuring in this chapter as having reached such an extreme pitch that divine judgment was swift and general; whereas the pattern un folded in this and following chapters indicates rather that it had a cumulative effect, leading to the grim pronouncement at Kadesh Barnea (14:1ff.).
The spirit of murmuring becomes specific in these verses, and its cause attributed to the rabble among the people (this seems to be the force of the phrase “mixed multitude,” which one commentator renders as “riff-raff”). This rabble-rousing element among the people certainly spread a major disaffection throughout the camp. As Calvin comments, the contagion of vice easily spreads. But the responsibility for this disaffection fell upon Israel, and as the following verses show it was Israel, not merely the “rabble,” who were punished. The weariness they expressed with what they felt to be a monotonous diet of manna, and their disparagement of it, as they longed for the Egyptian fare they had known—fish in plenty and a variety of vegetables—kindled the divine anger.
One would have thought that Israel would never have forgotten the terrible conditions of their slavery in Egypt and the horrors, privations, and tortures that had made life such a misery for them, and would have been content with any change from that, let alone the dignity of a high calling and destiny and the provision of a faithful and bounteous God. But no; they were actually looking back to these Egyptian experiences as if they had been a paradise for them (v. 5).
From this we may learn that looking back on “the good old days” is always a matter of wearing rose-colored glasses. The one word to describe the attitude of those who do so is humbug! It was, of course, the existence of the false among the true in Israel that caused the trouble, for this is always a fruitful source of infection. The truth is, the spiritual destiny is intolerable for a worldly people to contemplate—hence the telltale phrase in verse 6, “nothing at all except this manna,” even when what follows (vv. 7–9) describes that manna as a pleasant, God-given food sent with the dew of heaven, and described in Psalm 78:24ff. as “the bread of heaven” and “angels’ food.” There are those for whom “nothing except manna” is heaven itself, and every kind of joy, and others for whom it is sheer hell and unbearable; for manna is a heavenly food, and to appreciate heavenly food one needs a heavenly taste.
James Philip and Lloyd J. Ogilvie, Numbers, vol. 4, The Preacher’s Commentary Series (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Inc, 1987), 124, 126–127.
PRAGER U
Have you ever envied someone else’s success? Do you sometimes wish you had another person’s life? Comparing yourself to other people will only put you on the fast track to an unhappy life. If You Want a Happy Life…
This week, Dennis shares an important message about what famous Christmas tunes call “the best time of the year.” ‘Tis the season to be merry, but happiness doesn’t happen to you. Pursuing happiness, like pursuing all good things in life, is a choice. How You Can Be Happy
Dennis Prager talks the connection between gratitude and happiness and much more in his latest Fireside Chat. Check it out, and have a very happy Thanksgiving! Fireside Chat Ep. 59 – Gratitude Creates Happiness
Want to be miserable, resentful, and bitter? Few people do, and yet many people are. Why? Because many people have the one primary character trait that leads to unhappiness. And you need to avoid it. Nationally syndicated talk show host Dennis Prager explains. The Key to Unhappiness
Is there an equation that can accurately predict how happy you will be? There is. Can you control the inputs of that equation, and thus your own happiness? You can. How? Dennis Prager, author of the best-selling book, “Happiness is a Serious Problem”, explains. Happiness Equation: U = I – R
Dennis Prager talks about one of humanity’s biggest pursuits–happiness. It’s mentioned in the Declaration of Independence. Therapists and psychologists (and even pharmaceutical companies!) make their careers out of helping people be and feel happy. And we all know that being unhappy, and being around unhappy people, is no fun. Dennis will discuss why happiness, while great for personal and emotional reasons, is far more than a selfish pursuit. It is a moral obligation. Being happy around others is a necessary ingredient of growing up and accumulating friends. No one likes a Moody Mary. Also, more happiness makes for a better world. After all, how many of the world’s dictators and tyrants are motivated by happiness? None! So, learn how to be happy and learn why being happy is so important. Why Be Happy?
Doing what feels good in the moment may result in temporary pleasure, but will it lead to true happiness? This week, Dennis talks about the importance of not only having superficial fun but pursuing depth in your life. How is this achieved? Like all good things, you work at it! Ep. 318 — How to Live a Life of Depth
51% of young Americans are feeling depressed with a negative outlook on life, according to a recent survey. Why are they feeling so hopeless? Well if you are indoctrinated to hate your past, to live fearfully, and to expect the world to end, how could you not be? Ep. 186 — A Hopeless Generation?
EV Buyers Regret Choice (Update)
UPDATE – UPDATE – UPDATE
Although the electric vehicle market has seen significant growth over the past few years, there are signs that the exponential growth will slow down, with automakers like General Motors reducing electric vehicle sales and production targets. In fact, it appears as though even some EV owners themselves are yearning for a return to ICE-powered models.
According to a report from Automotive News, consulting firm McKinsey & Co. found that 46 percent of U.S. respondents who currently own an electric vehicle are likely to buy an ICE-powered vehicle as their next car purchase, with charging concerns standing out as the largest hindrance toward the gradual transition to all-electric vehicles.
Beyond this, McKinsey & Co. also found that 29 percent of electric vehicle owners worldwide are likely to switch to gasoline vehicles, citing the same concerns.
“I didn’t expect that,” McKinsey & Co. Center for Future Mobility Leader Philipp Kampshoff remarked. “I thought, ‘Once an EV buyer, always an EV buyer.’”
[….]
Interestingly, electric vehicle owners appear to be experiencing buyer’s remorse due to inadequate public charging infrastructure, high ownership costs, and limitations with long trips.
See also WINTERY KNIGHT!
~ Original Post Below ~
Bottom line of this post? EV CARS SUCK!
- “Overnight, we’re looking at 36 miles of range,” he told Insider. “Before I gave it back to Ford, because I wanted to give it back full, I drove it to the office and plugged in at the charger we have there.” — BUSINESS INSIDER
….Standard home outlets generally deliver 120 volts, powering at a level EV experts call “Level 1” charging, while the higher-powered specialty connections that can pump up to 240 volts into electric cars is known as “Level 2.”
The difference is night and day, according to the researchers. Of those who switched from EVs back to gas cars, over 70 percent lacked access to Level 2 charging at home, and slightly less than that lacked Level 2 connections at their workplaces.
“If you don’t have a Level 2, it’s almost impossible [to keep an EV],” noted Kevin Tynan, an automotive analyst for Bloomberg. Tynan used to own a Ford Mustang Mach-E, a battery-electric crossover SUV. Plugging it into his home outlet for an hour could give the Mach-E just three miles of range.
“Overnight, we’re looking at 36 miles of range,” he said. “Before I gave it back to Ford, because I wanted to give it back full, I drove it to the office and plugged it in at the charger we have there.”
For comparison, it takes an average of three minutes to fill up the gas tank of a Ford Mustang, which has enough range to go about 300 miles before needing to refuel.….
1 in 5 EV Buyers Switch Back to Gas-Powered Cars: Study (THE DRIVE | Apr 30, 2021)
Electric vehicles are poised to become a mainstay of transportation in the United States and abroad. Many countries are banning the sale of new internal combustion-powered vehicles around the year 2030, and with nearly every automaker having launched or already launching new EVs, the writing is on the wall.
But according to new research from Nature Energy, not everybody who takes the leap and buys an electric car sticks with the decision. In fact, around one in five people—or 20 percent—switch back to gasoline-powered cars. Why? Well, it’s for a variety of reasons, as it turns out.
The research, to start, was conducted with a sample size of 4,160 people. All of them purchased an electric vehicle in the state of California between 2012 and 2018, so this data is already a few years old now, and as we know, things have changed a lot since 2018 when it comes to EVs. But in any case 1,840 of those 4,160 people had made a decision about purchasing their next vehicle, which is how Nature Energy gathered the data for the “one in five” claim. It gathered other data about these people as well to learn more about their decision.
Those who were least likely to stick with electric vehicles were the ones who depended on them for their only means of transportation—so essentially people who only had one car, and the EV was it. People who lived in places where home charging was difficult also abandoned electric vehicles at higher rates, which is a good segue into the types of people EVs still aren’t right for: those who make less money.
Adopters who were most likely to ditch EVs were generally younger, were more likely to rent their living spaces and were less likely to live in a standalone house. This makes it very difficult to secure 240v fast charging where these people live, so they’re completely dependent on public charging stations. Women also switched back to gas-powered vehicles at higher rates than men, although the paper offered no concrete suggestion as to why that might be.
The study also found that improvements to public charging infrastructure didn’t really matter to these people, implying that they perhaps only travel short distances in their vehicles and take fewer long trips. This suggests that investments in public charging infrastructure may not be the simple one-size-fits-all solution that EVs need to gain popularity…..
One Out Of Five Electric Car Buyers Return To Gas-Powered Cars (POST MILLENNIAL | Sep 5, 2023)
Drivers cited “dissatisfaction with the convenience of charging” as a reason to return to gas-powered vehicles.
A new study has revealed that one in five early adopters of electric vehicles are going back to using internal combustion engines leading to a fall in the price of electric vehicles (EVs).
According to the study published in Nature, of those early adopters of EVs in California from 2012 through 2018, 20 percent of those who opted for plug-in hybrids have returned to gas-powered vehicles, while 18 percent of EV drivers returned to internal combustion engines with their next vehicle purchase.
One demographic is those who moved to a new place with no Level 2 chargers, which could be related to migration away from urban centers to more suburban and rural areas during the Covid pandemic.
Drivers also cited “dissatisfaction with the convenience of charging” as a reason to return to gas-powered vehicles.
Additionally, households with fewer vehicles were more likely to opt for a return to gas-powered vehicles, as well as any household that bought an EV but kept at least one less efficient vehicle.
Women were more likely to return to a gas-powered vehicle than men, according to the study.
In June it was revealed that over one thousand employees of the Ford Motor Company would be losing their jobs as a result of a significant loss of revenue due to electric vehicle investment efforts. Additionally, the automaker is expecting to lose $3 billion in electric vehicle operating profit in 2023, and the company’s current operating costs are $7 billion to $8 billion, higher than any other competitor, which has forced the company to lay off employees, along with other cost-saving measures…..
Professor Jed Rubenfeld On The Trump Verdict (Episode 2 Added)
BTW, Dennis Prager notes that the only reason Trump is charged/convicted with 34-felonies is that he paid this in 34 billings to his lawyer. It is one “charge,” times 34. So, if Trump had stretched it out for a year, paying a small amount every day, he would have 365-felonies. Dumb.
The Trump hush-money criminal trial verdict is in—and it’s guilty. What does it mean? And what’s next? In the debut episode of my new show—Straight Down the Middle—I will walk you through it all. As a professor of law, one-time federal prosecutor, and constitutional law scholar, I have over three decades of experience with complex constitutional issues and I want to share everything I know with you and how it applies to the issues we see in the real world. In this episode, I walk through The Basics of the Trump verdict, The Constitutional Issues facing the conviction, and the Next Steps.
In Episode 2 of Straight Down the Middle, I take a look at whether the decision to charge and try Donald Trump for these crimes was “selective prosecution” on the part of Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg. I also tackle the issue of jury unanimity and whether the jury needed to find a unanimous verdict and what “unanimous” really meant here and how it was applied.
Trump Offered 10,000+ Troops Prior To J6 (UPDATED)
BOOM! Out of the horses mouth!
Pelosi Admits She Was Responsible For The National Guard On Jan. 6Th:
Oversight writes “Since January 6, 2021, Nancy Pelosi spent 3+ years and nearly $20 million creating a narrative to blame Donald Trump.”
This undermines her entire partisan select committee’s investigation because she was the one at fault for the lack of National Guard. It was her office, her responsibility.
But do you think this is going to get any play by the garbage media? I’d be shocked if it did. They aren’t in the business of dishonoring one of their Democrat heroes and helping Trump in the process.
(The below is originally from February 2021, updated multiple times)
Mark Levin discusses Mark Meadows revelation from February 7th (TRUMP WAR ROOM). I do not listen to Mark all that much, but this is the maddest I have heard him (at the end: 6:03 to 6:15 mark).
…Meadows told Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures” host Maria Bartiromo that even though Trump was vocal about offering Capitol Police and National Guard presence at the Capitol on multiple occasions prior to January 6, his offers were rejected “every time.”
“We also know that in January, but also throughout the summer, that the president was very vocal in making sure that we had plenty of National Guard, plenty of additional support because he supports our rule of law and supports our law enforcement and offered additional help,” Meadows told Bartiromo.
“Even in January, that was a given, as many as 10,000 National Guard troops were told to be on the ready by the Secretary of Defense,” Meadows said. “That was a direct order from President Trump and yet here is what we see … all kinds of blame going around but yet not a whole lot of accountability.”…
What is not known by the typical cable news watcher, probably, is that both the Capital Police and the mayor of D.C. turned down offers to help secure the government areas before and as the mob of crazed Lefties and Righties descended on the Capital:
- …Three days before the riot, the Pentagon offered National Guard manpower. And as the mob descended on the building Wednesday, Justice Department leaders reached out to offer up FBI agents. Capitol Police turned them down both times, according to senior defense officials and two people familiar with the matter. Despite plenty of warnings of a possible insurrection and ample resources and time to prepare, police planned only for a free speech demonstration. (WASHINGTON TIMES)
- Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser told federal law enforcement to stand down just one day before a mob of Trump supporters breached the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, smashing windows, entering the chambers, and forcing lawmakers and congressional staff inside into lockdown. “To be clear, the District of Columbia is not requesting other federal law enforcement personnel and discourages any additional deployment without immediate notification to, and consultation with, MPD if such plans are underway,” Bowser wrote in a letter to acting U.S. Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, acting Secretary of Defense Chris Miller, and Secretary of the Army Ryan D. McCarthy. According to Bowser, D.C.’s Metropolitan Police Department in coordination with the U.S. Park Police, Capitol Police, and Secret Sevice were well-equipped to handle whatever problems could come up during the Trump rallies planned for Wednesday. (THE FEDERALIST)
(UPDATE: May 4th, 2024) 》》
Capitol Police Chief, Steve Sund, asked for National Guard as well…
The Washington Post has reported that the outgoing Capitol Police Chief, Steve Sund, believes his efforts to secure the premises were undermined by a lack of concern from House and Senate security officials who answer directly to Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate leader Mitch McConnell.
[….]
The admission that House and Senate security leaders failed to provide Capitol Police with resources on the day will raise questions over their role in the day’s events.
WaPo reported late Sunday night:
Two days before Congress was set to formalize President-elect Joe Biden’s victory, Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund was growing increasingly worried about the size of the pro-Trump crowds expected to stream into Washington in protest.
To be on the safe side, Sund asked House and Senate security officials for permission to request that the D.C. National Guard be placed on standby in case he needed quick backup.
But, Sund said Sunday, they turned him down.
In his first interview since pro-Trump rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol last week, Sund, who has since resigned his post, said his supervisors were reluctant to take formal steps to put the Guard on call even as police intelligence suggested that the crowd President Trump had invited to Washington to protest his defeat probably would be much larger than earlier demonstrations.
House Sergeant at Arms Paul Irving said he wasn’t comfortable with the “optics” of formally declaring an emergency ahead of the demonstration, Sund said. Meanwhile, Senate Sergeant at Arms Michael Stenger suggested that Sund should informally seek out his Guard contacts, asking them to “lean forward” and be on alert in case Capitol Police needed their help.
Irving could not be reached for comment. A cellphone number listed in his name has not accepted messages since Wednesday. Messages left at a residence he owns in Nevada were not immediately returned, and there was no answer Sunday evening at a Watergate apartment listed in his name. A neighbor said he had recently moved out.
Sund recalled a conference call with Pentagon officials and officials from the D.C. government. He said on the call: “I am making an urgent, urgent immediate request for National Guard assistance… I have got to get boots on the ground.”
But the request was apparently denied over optics. ….
The admissions of how these military leaders ignored President Trump’s multiple calls for National Guard before and during the January 6th riot have just ben expanded by two National Guard whistle blowers…. “Four members of the National Guard testified that they were ready to be deployed on January 6 but THE PENTAGON held them back!” GATEWAY PUNDIT notes where this may end up at the feet of — besides D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s:
- This directly brings General Milley’s actions into question!
So the three most LEFTIST players involved — Bowser, Pelosi, and Milley — had a hand in stopping the calls for law and order. Who’da thunk it??
Continuing….
… According to Colonel Earl Matthews, who testified before Congress in April, US military leaders revoked President Trump’s Commander-in-Chief powers that day and refused to move in the National Guard – because it might look bad.
These military leaders should have been arrested and court martialed.
The Daily Mail reported:
Donald Trump’s authority as commander-in-chief was ignored by senior military leadership on January 6, 2021, claims the chief legal advisor for D.C. National Guard on that day.
Colonel Earl Matthews came forward as a whistleblower to the House subcommittee reviewing the January 6 Select Committee’s investigation.
He sat down with DailyMail.com two weeks after the public hearing to explain what he saw happen that day.
He claims that Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the time, and then-Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy, were plotting to disobey any orders handed down by Trump because they ‘unreasonably’ assumed the then-president was going to break the law and try to use the D.C. National Guard (DCNG) to stop certification of the 2020 presidential election results.
[….]
But Matthews says that senior military leadership essentially stripped the president of his authority as commander-in-chief by preemptively planning to go against orders because they didn’t like the optics of uniformed soldiers at the Capitol.
‘I think a very plausible argument can be made that through no fault of his own, President Trump’s command authority over both the D.C. National Guard and the U.S. Army itself had been surreptitiously curtailed by the senior leadership of the Army on January 6, 2021,’ Matthews told DailyMail.com.
He continued: ‘Army leadership had unreasonably anticipated an ‘unlawful order’ from the President, an order that the President had no plans to issue, and were preemptively seeking to curtail his discretion to issue such an order.’
(UPDATED: June 7th, 2022) 》》
Kash Patel and Christopher Miller former acting secretary of defense on the sham 1/6 hearings! Kash wants all the transcripts released
Richard Dawkins Rejects Darwinism As It Relates to Ethics
Originally Posted in February 2015
As a note/addition to the above dialogue concerning “Darwin & Hitler”… here is a Mein Kampf quote:
- “The stronger must dominate and not mate with the weaker, which would signify the sacrifice of its own higher nature. Only the born weakling can look upon this principle as cruel, and if he does so it is merely because he is of a feebler nature and narrower mind; for if such a law [natural selection] did not direct the process of evolution then the higher development of organic life would not be conceivable at all…. If Nature does not wish that weaker individuals should mate with the stronger, she wishes even less that a superior race should intermingle with an inferior one; because in such a case all her efforts, throughout hundreds of thousands of years, to establish an evolutionary higher stage of being, may thus be rendered futile.”
Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, translator/annotator, James Murphy [New York: Hurst and Blackett, 1942], pp. 161-162.
Paul Copan and Matthew Flannagan, Did God Really Command Genocide? Coming to Terms with the Justice of God (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2014), fn.2, 319 [added linked reference from Evolution News for context]:
Dawkins spells out the contradiction: “As an academic scientist, I am a passionate Darwinian, believing that natural selection is, if not the only driving force in evolution, certainly the only known force capable of producing the illusion of purpose which so strikes all who contemplate nature. But at the same time as I support Darwinism as a scientist, I am a passionate anti-Darwinian when it comes to politics and how we should conduct our human affairs.” A Devils Chaplain: Reflections on Hope, Lies, Science, and Love (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2003), 10-11.
In another place, he admits to the logic of his own determinism (that people cannot be held responsible for their actions), but emotionally he cannot accept this. See the Dawkins interview by Logan Gage, “Who Wrote Richard Dawkins’s New Book?,” Evolution News (website), October 28, 2006:
Manzari: Dr. Dawkins thank you for your comments. The thing I have appreciated most about your comments is your consistency in the things I’ve seen you’ve written. One of the areas that I wanted to ask you about, and the place where I think there is an inconsistency, and I hoped you would clarify, is that in what I’ve read you seem to take a position of a strong determinist who says that what we see around us is the product of physical laws playing themselves out; but on the other hand it would seem that you would do things like taking credit for writing this book and things like that. But it would seem, and this isn’t to be funny, that the consistent position would be that necessarily the authoring of this book, from the initial conditions of the big bang, it was set that this would be the product of what we see today. I would take it that that would be the consistent position but I wanted to know what you thought about that.
Dawkins: The philosophical question of determinism is a very difficult question. It’s not one I discuss in this book, indeed in any other book that I’ve ever talked about. Now an extreme determinist, as the questioner says, might say that everything we do, everything we think, everything that we write has been determined from the beginning of time in which case the very idea of taking credit for anything doesn’t seem to make any sense. Now I don’t actually know what I actually think about that, I haven’t taken up a position about that, it’s not part of my remit to talk about the philosophical issue of determinism. What I do know is that what it feels like to me, and I think to all of us, we don’t feel determined. We feel like blaming people for what they do or giving people the credit for what they do. We feel like admiring people for what they do. None of us ever actually as a matter of fact says, “Oh well he couldn’t help doing it, he was determined by his molecules.” Maybe we should… I sometimes… Um… You probably remember many of you would have seen Fawlty Towers. The episode where Basil[‘s]… car won’t start and he gives it fair warning, counts up to three, and then gets out of the car and picks up a tree branch and thrashes it within an edge of his life. Maybe that’s what we all ought to… Maybe the way we laugh at Basil Fawlty, we ought to laugh in the same way at people who blame humans. I mean when we punish people for doing the most horrible murders, maybe the attitude we should take is “Oh they were just determined by their molecules.” It’s stupid to punish them. What we should do is say “This unit has a faulty motherboard which needs to be replaced.” I can’t bring myself to do that. I actually do respond in an emotional way and I blame people, I give people credit, or I might be more charitable and say this individual who has committed murders or child abuse of whatever it is was really abused in his own childhood. And so again I might take a…
Manzari: But do you personally see that as an inconsistency in your views?
Dawkins: I sort of do. Yes. But it is an inconsistency that we sort of have to live with otherwise life would be intolerable. But it has nothing to do with my views on religion it is an entirely separate issue.
Manzari: Thank you.
(Even more at REASON FOR GOD)
2 Peter 1:5-8 & Isaiah 5:20:
“For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Woe to those who call evil good
and good evil,
who substitute darkness for light
and light for darkness
who substitute bitter for sweet
and sweet for bitter.
Dawkins says:
“What’s to prevent us from saying Hitler wasn’t right? I mean, that is a genuinely difficult question.” (See/hear more)
In other words, there is no absolute moral ethic, Dawkins wants to have a consensus of people agreeing what is “right” and “wrong” — he says as much in the audio above.
Which means that rape and murder are only taboo… not really wrong.
Secondly, there can be no concept of “ought”
What about human actions? They are of no more value or significance than the actions of any other material thing. Consider rocks rolling down a hill and coming to rest at the bottom. We don’t say that some particular arrangement of the rocks is right and another is wrong. Rocks don’t have a duty to roll in a particular way and land in a particular place. Their movement is just the product of the laws of physics. We don’t say that rocks “ought” to land in a certain pattern and that if they don’t then something needs to be done about it. We don’t strive for a better arrangement or motion of the rocks. In just the same way, there is no standard by which human actions can be judged. We are just another form of matter in motion, like the rocks rolling down the hill.
We tend to think that somewhere “out there” there are standards of behaviour that men ought to follow. But according to Dawkins there is only the “natural, physical world”. Nothing but particles and forces. These things cannot give rise to standards that men have a duty to follow. In fact they cannot even account for the concept of “ought”. There exist only particles of matter obeying the laws of physics. There is no sense in which anything ought to be like this or ought to be like that. There just is whatever there is, and there just happens whatever happens in accordance with the laws of physics.
Men’s actions are therefore merely the result of the laws of physics that govern the behaviour of the particles that make up the chemicals in the cells and fluids of their bodies and thus control how they behave. It is meaningless to say that the result of those physical reactions ought to be this or ought to be that. It is whatever it is. It is meaningless to say that people ought to act in a certain way. It is meaningless to say (to take a contemporary example) that the United States and its allies ought not to have invaded Iraq. The decision to invade was just the outworking of the laws of physics in the bodies of the people who governed those nations. And there is no sense in which the results of that invasion can be judged as good or bad because there are no standards to judge anything by. There are only particles reacting together; no standards, no morals, nothing but matter in motion.
Dawkins finds it very hard to be consistent to this system of belief. He thinks and acts as if there were somewhere, somehow standards that people ought to follow. For example in The God Delusion, referring particularly to the Christian doctrine of atonement, he says that there are “teachings in the New Testament that no good person should support”.(6) And he claims that religion favours an in-group/out-group approach to morality that makes it “a significant force for evil in the world”.(7)
According to Dawkins, then, there are such things as good and evil. We all know what good and evil mean. We know that if no good person should support the doctrine of atonement then we ought not to support that doctrine. We know that if religion is a force for evil then we are better off without religion and that, indeed, we ought to oppose religion. The concepts of good and evil are innate in us. The problem for Dawkins is that good and evil make no sense in his worldview. “There is nothing beyond the natural, physical world.” There are no standards out there that we ought to follow. There is only matter in motion reacting according to the laws of physics. Man is not of a different character to any other material thing. Men’s actions are not of a different type or level to that of rocks rolling down a hill. Rocks are not subject to laws that require them to do good and not evil; nor are men. Every time you hear Dawkins talking about good and evil as if the words actually meant something, it should strike you loud and clear as if he had announced to the world, “I am contradicting myself”.
Please note that I am not saying that Richard Dawkins doesn’t believe in good and evil. On the contrary, my point is that he does believe in them but that his worldview renders such standards meaningless.
We know Dawkins’ position is not science, so… what is it? Here begins the journey for the truly curious.
American Infidels and the Left | Screams Before Silence
This entire post bleeds into the video at the end. I suggest you at last skip all this fodder, as important as it is, and watch that video at the bottom.
This is the video [below] that caused Google to remove Prager University’s ap from their store:
- (PJ-MEDIA) There are messages that do not conform to the Accepted Narrative. If the messengers cannot be controlled, they have to be eliminated. So it should come as no surprise that a tech giant, with a history of left-wing proclivities and a cozy relationship with Democrats in power, found the excuse it needed to silence a dissident voice. (See also RIGHT SCOOP)
Radical Islam poses a significant threat to our freedom. The rise of anti-American rhetoric and violence in cities and universities is a direct result of the indoctrination led by those perpetrating a religious war against the West. PragerU’s short documentary features first-hand accounts from those who escaped Islamic rule and have come to warn America.
Featuring:
- Ayman Abu Suboh (later Dor Shachar), a Palestinian who escaped to Israel from the terror of Hamas and later converted to Judaism.
- Sophia Salma Khalifa, an Arab Muslim born in Israel who moved to the U.S. to earn her master’s degree from Stanford University.
- Omar Vieira, retired U.S. Navy SEAL who served for 21 years and led high-risk operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, and other locations in the Middle East.
- Jason Tuschen, retired U.S. Navy SEAL Command Master Chief who served for 27 years and was responsible for executing National Security Strategy in the Middle East.
MORE:
Just a couple, related , stories that I cam across recently. But first, just some excerpts on what we already know: “Amid a bitter election-year debate over illegal immigration, FBI Director Chris Wray told a Senate panel on Monday that dangerous individuals have entered the United States illegally at the southern border. (ABC)”
This story garnered the Left’s attention to say, “Ha, the open border in the South is not the issue…”
- 736 known or suspected terrorists apprehended at U.S. border in fiscal 2023 – 66% of those apprehended at northern border (CENTER SQUARE)
However, the question becomes this… how many got away on our Southern Border? Remember, the number is higher today
These numbers don’t include gotaways, which are believed to also include KSTs. “Gotaways” is the official U.S. Customs and Border Patrol term that refers to those who illegally enter the U.S. between ports of entry, don’t return to Mexico or Canada, and are not apprehended. They total at least nearly 1.7 million since January 2021. However, the number is believed to be much higher because not all gotaways are known and or reported.
With people illegally entering the U.S. from over 170 countries, former ICE Chief Tom Homan told The Center Square some of these countries they are coming from are sponsors of terrorism.
“If you don’t think a single one of the 1.7 million [gotaways] is coming from a country that sponsors terrorism, then you’re ignoring the data,” he said. “That’s what makes this a huge national security issue.”
But yes, both borders are under assault: “Terrorist watch list apprehensions at northern border continue to break records.” Now you know the rest of the story.
Hijrah
In Islam, there is the idea of Hijrah.
The Hijrah, in Islamic lore, was the migration of Muhammad and his followers from Mecca to Medina, where the Muslims ultimately outnumbered the local population and took over the city. Ever since then, Muslim migration to non-Muslim lands for the purpose of turning them Muslim is part of Islamic doctrine.
In fact, in the Qu’ran, Sura 4, Verse 100 says…
“And whoever emigrates for the cause of Allah will find on the earth many locations and abundance. And whoever leaves his home as an emigrant to Allah and His Messenger and then death overtakes him, his reward has already become incumbent upon Allah. And Allah is ever Forgiving and Merciful.”
Confirming the above video, PJ-MEDIA notes the “Sharia Courts” growth in Europe. And now Europe is in a battle under reported:
…. The English actor-turned-political-activist Lawrence Fox recently noted what was happening: “The Mayor of London is a Muslim. The mayor of Birmingham is a Muslim. The Mayor of Leeds is Muslim. Mayor of Blackburn – Muslim. The mayor of Sheffield is a Muslim. The mayor of Oxford is a Muslim. The mayor of Luton is a Muslim. The mayor of Oldham is Muslim. The mayor of Rochdale is Muslim. All this was achieved by only 4 million Muslims out of 66 million people in England.”
This kind of thing has happened before, but few remember. Back in the days when our schools and universities concentrated on teaching actual facts rather than leftist propaganda, race hatred, and gender fantasy, every schoolchild learned about the Norman conquest of England in 1066. Nowadays one would be hard-pressed to find someone under twenty who knows what a “Norman” was (they were people from Normandy, in northern France, where a large number of Norsemen from Scandinavia had settled), but a few decades ago any random student would have been able to tell you that this conquest was not just a military victory. It heralded the thorough transformation of English society.
The invading Normans were few in number compared to the English, but once they had defeated the defenders, they set about systematically to ensure that England would remain theirs in perpetuity. They removed the native English from positions of political and ecclesiastical power. Norman French mingled with the Old English language, ultimately creating the English language as we know it today. Historian Richard Southern observed that “no country in Europe, between the rise of the barbarian kingdoms and the 20th century, has undergone so radical a change in so short a time as England experienced after 1066.”
Until now. Lawrence Fox continued: “Today there are over 3,000 mosques in England. There are over 130 sharia courts. There are more than 50 Sharia Councils. 78 percent of Muslim women do not work, receive state support + free accommodation. 63 percent of Muslims do not work, receive state support + free housing. State-supported Muslim families with an average of 6 to 8 children receive free accommodation. Now every school in the UK is required to teach lessons about Islam. Has anyone ever been given an opportunity to vote for this?”
All this has already transformed Britain, and much more is to come. JNS recently reported that “honor-based abuse cases in England rose by more than 60% in two years, with 2,594 cases in 2022 vs. 1,599 in 2020.” It pointed out that “such crimes are common in many Muslim countries, including Pakistan and Bangladesh. (1.6 million people, or 2.7%, of the United Kingdom’s population identify as Pakistani, and 94,434, or 1.1%, as Bangladeshi, according to the 2022 U.K. census.)” Now honor crimes will be common in a new Muslim country, Britain. …..
Douglas Murray
‘Morally wicked’: Douglas Murray calls out commentator defending Hamas’ charter
Author Douglas Murray has called out an American political commentator for defending Hamas’ charter and claiming it does not want to kill Jewish people in Israel. Briahna Joy Gray claimed Hamas wants to limit the idea of a Jewish state and wants a democracy similar to what is seen in the United States. “There is something morally wicked about doing that. She would accept that in no other situation of something to explain what a terrorist group actually seeks to do,” Mr Murray told Sky News host Rita Panahi.
Susan Sarandon
#MeeTooUnlessYouAreAJew
Now, Susan Sarandon
Hollywood Actress Susan Sarandon DENIES “All the R*pes” committed by Hamas on Oct 7th calling them ‘MYTHS’.
“Do you not know that all of those myths about babies in ovens and the r*pes have all been denied. You are not up to speed.”
On October 7th dozens of women, men and… pic.twitter.com/Pt5hlc5OPt
— Oli London (@OliLondonTV) April 24, 2024
NEWSBUSTERS has more on the issues with Susan and her #BelieveAllWomen… except Jewish women stance (BTW, the few week old video commentary included [to the right] has some rough language for those sensitive to it):
Susan Sarandon isn’t letting cancellation curb her pro-Palestinian views.
The Oscar-winning actress lost her representation late last year after uttering this tone-deaf comparison at a pro-Palestinian rally
Bottom of Form
“There are a lot of people that are afraid, that are afraid of being Jewish at this time, and are getting a taste of what it feels like to be a Muslim in this country.”
She also shouted along with the crowd, “Long live the Intifada,” and “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” according to The New York Post. Both comments are steeped in violent, antisemitic tropes.
[….]
Social media user Keren Picker walked with Sarandon during yet another pro-Palestinian protest in late April. Picker pressed the star on her positions regarding the Israeli/Hamas war. That included the mountains of evidence that Hamas did more than butcher hundreds of women.
The terror group sexually assaulted them in the most barbaric ways possible.
Sarandon dubbed those assaults mere “myths.”
“We know that all of those myths about babies in ovens and the rapes,” Sarandon said in response to Picker’s interrogation.
“It’s not a myth. You’re denying, you’re denying the terror actions made on October 7th to so many innocent civilians,” Picker countered. She shared the exchange on Instagram….
SKY NEWS AUSTRALIA covered this topic well:
AMI HOROWITZ
‘Me too unless you’re a Jew’: Ami Horowitz slams Susan Sarandon’s stance on Israel-Hamas war
Filmmaker Ami Horowitz says actress Susan Sarandon “dropped the veneer” of being anti-Israel and instead is openly an anti-Semite. Mr Horowitz joined Sky News Australia host Rita Panahi to discuss the actress’ stance on the Israel-Hamas war. “Susan Sarandon had dropped the veneer of simply being anti-Israel but being an open anti-Semite a while ago,” he said. “You can believe the New York Times – I’m sure is Susan Sarandon’s Bible, that interviewed 150 rape victims, rape counsellors, medical emergency personnel, and actually had video the rapes that happened, you can do that, or you can believe Hamas, because that’s essentially what she’s doing. “I mean, me too unless you’re a Jew.”
Her radicalism is reverberating through a film being made. Here is DAILY MAIL’S story on her anti-Semitism ruining what should b a fun film to make:
… The plot will follow three longtime friends who travel to Key West, Florida to be bridesmaids in a surprise wedding for their other close pal, played by Midler.
But despite playing a group of loving gal pals on screen, insiders tell DailyMail.com that the relationship between Sarandon and her co-stars was fraught on set after she persisted with her controversial campaign following her previous anti-Semitic remarks.
‘Bleecker Street is furious at Susan for the way she’s been carrying on. So is Bette, who is a proud Jew and hates what Susan is doing,’ a film insider told DailyMail.com.
‘Sheryl is upset at her too, as is Megan Mullally, the whole crew and cast are. It’s a mess.
‘Her co-stars are disappointed that so many people worked so hard on it, and now Susan is ruining it for everybody.’….
Screams Before Silence
Which brings me all the way to this excellent, but truly tragic — tragic because it had to be made at all — documentary:
A must-watch documentary. #ScreamsBeforeSilence sheds light on the unspeakable sexual violence committed on October 7. As heartbreaking as these stories in the documentary are, we cannot afford to look away. (ORIGINAL FILE)
Sam Shamoun | Divinity of Jesus vs Islam
These verses used below are also used for Jehovah’s Witnesses and our Jewish brothers as well. BTW, the title’s this YouTube Channel creates are essentially “click bait” — “COMPLETELY,” “DESTROYED”, etc, but I appreciate them adding captions and the like.
Sam Shamoun COMPLETELY DESTROYS Sheikh Uthman’s ARGUMENTS About Jesus
Claiming that Jesus never identified as God in the Bible is an obvious display of ignorance. Passages like John 1:1, John 20:28, and Titus 2:13 clearly affirm Jesus’ divinity, directly contradicting his arguments. Furthermore, questioning the authenticity of the New Testament while relying on Islamic texts, which lack comparable manuscript evidence and consistency, is totally hypocritical.
Sincere Muslim THOUGHT He EXPOSED The Bible… BUT COMPLETELY BACKFIRES
The Bible clearly shows that Jesus is more than a prophet: He is called “Lord” and “God,” worshipped as divine, recognized as the eternal “Word of God,” and claims to be “I AM,” showing His divine nature, which differs greatly from the Islamic view of Him being just a prophet!
Rep. Byron Donald’s Jim Crow Comments
A couple “house keeping” issues… the 2nd video below is from a Democrat oriented RUMBLE channel. Which I support, BECAUSE, freedom of speech is ALL SIDES!
I love the video for the reason that Joy Reid at least played the entire clip for clarity…. which showed just how “out of sequence” her later questioning of Byon was.
I will also post the response [comment] I made on Blue Wave Network’s video under that video.
BUT FIRST, Byron responding to dumb Dems:
FINISH HIM: Byron Donalds Claps Back HARD on Hakeem Jeffries Over Jim Crow Comments (TWITCHY)
Here is Joy Reid’s interview with the Florida Rep:
GOP Congressman Facing Backlash for Defending Jim Crow’s “Positive Aspects”
Dumb.
His point wasn’t about the “positiveness of Jim Crow,” but the negativeness of Democratic policies since Lyndon Johnson (LBJ) and the welfare state. Here are my comments:
That was very nice of Joy to play the full quote. In the tradition of Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, Shelby Steele, Barak Obama, or Larry Elder… Byron discusses the assault by the progressive Left on the black family. Joy, uses a non-sequitur of a horrible event to the larger position Byron made about the cohesiveness of the black family then, versus now.
- “One of these ‘favors’ was the welfare state. A vastly expanded welfare state in the 1960s destroyed the black family, which had survived centuries of slavery and generations of racial oppression. In 1960, before this expansion of the welfare state, 22 percent of black children were raised with only one parent. By 1985, 67 percent of black children were raised with either one parent or no parent.” [me: now it is 72%] – Thomas Sowell, Battle Creek Enquirer.
- “The welfare state has done to black Americans what slavery couldn’t do…. And that is to destroy the black family.” – Walter E. Williams, The Wall Street Journal.
- “Instantly in the early 1970s we get welfare without any expectation of personal development or family responsibility whatsoever. Nothing damaged the black family in America, including slavery, the way that those welfare policies did. And now we are seeing the results.” – Shelby Steele, Hoover Digest.
- “They (Black fathers) have abandoned their responsibilities, acting like boys instead of men. We know the statistics — that children who grow up without a father are five times more likely to live in poverty and commit crime; nine times more likely to drop out of schools and 20 times more likely to end up in prison. They are more likely to have behavioral problems, or run away from home or become teenage parents themselves. And the foundations of our community are weaker because of it.” – Barack Obama
- “…from 1890 to 1940, a black child was more likely to grow up with married parents than a white child.” – Larry Elder, Prager U.
Tolerance
CLASSICAL [Paleo] LIBERAL DEFINITION OF TOLERANCE:
Modern day “tolerance” is a bit different than previous days iterations. The “tolerance of old” assumed disagreement in its definition.
It basically said that two people have two views of the world, they can get together [hopefully amiably], and make their points vigorously, walk away either saying “I never thought about that,” or, “I still disagree but let’s meet up next week for pickle ball.”
This definition says you are tolerant by amiably disagreeing. Again, this historical tolerance accepted disagreement.
THE MODERN [Woke, Progressive, Left] ILLIBERAL DEFINITION OF TOLERANCE:
The new definition of tolerance rejects disagreement at the outset. This new form of tolerance says that if you disagree, you are INTOLERANT.
One of the keys to this view is the person who is saying another is intolerant for disagreeing, is not amiable. They are activists. They want all of society to think a certain way… or else.
NEW (6/7/2024) Democrats have already weaponized the justice system against conservatives and Donald Trump, and no a New York Democratic congressional candidate thinks that all MAGA supporters should be sent to a “re-education camp” following the 2024 election.
Paula Collins, the Democrat challenging Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), publicly announced her idea during a public Zoom townhall this week.
“Even if we were to have a resounding blue wave come through, as many of us would like, putting it all back together again after we’ve gone through this MAGA nightmare and re-educating basically, which, that sounds like a rather, a re-education camp. I don’t think we really want call it that,” Collins said. “I’m sure we can find another way to phrase it.”
“This radical New York City Democrat Socialist who literally is renting a bed and breakfast room in NY-21 was caught on tape saying she wants to force Trump voters through ‘re-education camps,’” Alex DeGrasse, a senior advisor to Elise Stefanik, told Fox News Digital. “Everyone knows she will be defeated by Elise Stefanik by a historic margin.”
Collins later attempted to clarify her comments.
“We currently have lawmakers, including Rep. Elise Stefanik, who mis-quote or mis-understand the law,” Collins told Fox News Digital. “Even if MAGA were to be resoundingly defeated, we would need to engage in widespread civics education, which both red and blue voters acknowledge has been slipping in recent years.”
Yeah, okay.
Obviously, Collins is just one person and her views may not represent the entirety of the Democratic Party, but her statement underscores the troubling trend of how Democrats view people who disagree with them politically. ….
(PJ-MEDIA)
This is ACE of SPADES response to the above:
Had the Democrats not murdered Abraham Lincoln in 1865, perhaps he might have unleashed a terrible swift sword of justice on that party and burned its evil black heart out, which had done so much to defile and destroy the dream and promise of the American revolution, the results of which reverberate to this day with generations of wasted lives and potential.
They also posit that the “disagreeing” person is not just wrong, but in many ways evil. And to prove this they attack a sign around their neck that reads any number of these labels: sexist, intolerant, xenophobic, homophobic, Islamophobic, racist, bigoted (S.I.X.H.I.R.B.).
This “new” tolerance is the outcome of what Allie Beth Stuckey calls “toxic empathy“, what Judge Bork called “illiberal egalitarianism.” Or what was in part, “political correctness,” what is also called “woke,” “social-justice,” “[Kendi’s] anti-racism,” “multi-culturalism,” all of it undefinable other than people taking political power through caste systems:
| SOWELL | HAYEK |
And voilà, this disagreeable person, is a troglodyte deserving of shunning from polite [so-called] society.
…..Technically, tolerance is an attitude of putting up with those with whom we differ. Tolerance presupposes there are differences and yet, in order to get along, we tolerate our opponents as fellow human beings, Americans and neighbors. We find ways to work together for the common good while still maintaining our differences.
But, with the death of trust, tolerance has gone from being a mature and honorable tension to being a binary state of war because trust has been evaporated from the equation. Let me explain: Historically, there have always been ethical binaries. That is, ethical pairs that were either/or. For example, something is either right or wrong, good or evil, black or white, up or down. But many ethical components are non-binary — think on a spectrum. For example, cold, cool, tepid, warm, hot. Throughout history, tolerance was non-binary. It was more needed when relating to those who differed greatly, less so with those more aligned with us.
But, today, the ethics of tolerance have become binary, either/or, and this has eliminated the basic meaning of tolerance altogether.
Today, love and hate are binary. If you don’t love something, if you don’t agree, don’t applaud, and don’t acknowledge ideas or behavior as ethically acceptable, then you are a hater. Consequently, there is no longer a sense of tolerance. The whole concept has been wiped from the page of society in our day. When it comes to our enemies, we don’t tolerate, we terminate.…
(DAVID HEGG @THE SIGNAL — found and added today! 11/01/2023)
This form of “tolerance” has dangerous connotations in wanting to get people by coercion or force to think one way. Totalitarianism, or “total thought.” This leads to programs like “diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI)” – which are forcing “total thought,” what Tammy Bruce many years ago titled her book about her early encounters with it: “The New Thought Police: Inside the Left’s Assault on Free Speech and Free Minds”
Today, politicians are seriously floating ideas of “re-education camps.” As an example, here is Hillary Clinton speaking about Trump supporters:
“Because at some point, maybe there needs to be a formal deprogramming of the cult members, but something needs to happen” (WALL STREET JOURNAL: “The Totalitarian Heart of Hillary Clinton: The 2016 Election Denier Calls For “Formal Deprogramming” Of Trump Supporters“)
The point made in the title of the Wall Street Journal article is that Hillary vehemently denied the election of 2016:
Remember, Democrats challenged more states electors in 2016 with the election of President Trump in 2020, which is that in 2017 Democrats challenged nine state’s electors and in 2021 Republicans challenged six state’s electors:
9 VS. 6
…In the 2016 presidential election, Trump won 304 electoral votes to Hillary Clinton‘s 227. During the joint session on January 6, 2017, seven House Democrats tried to object to electoral votes from multiple states.
According to a C-SPAN recording of the joint session that took place four years ago, the following House Democrats made objections:
- Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) objected to Alabama’s votes.
- Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) objected to Florida’s votes.
- Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) objected to Georgia’s votes.
- Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.) objected to North Carolina’s votes.
- Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) objected to the votes from North Carolina in addition to votes from South Carolina and Wisconsin. She also stood up and objected citing “massive voter suppression” after Mississippi’s votes were announced.
- Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) brought up allegations of Russian interference in the election and malfunctioning voting machines when she objected following the announcement of Michigan’s votes.
- Maxine Waters (D-Calif) rose and said, “I do not wish to debate. I wish to ask ‘Is there one United States senator who will join me in this letter of objection?'” after the announcement of Wyoming’s votes.
[….]
In 2017, House Democrats objected to votes from Alabama, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Wisconsin. Objections also were made after the announcement of votes from Mississippi, Michigan and Wyoming, adding up to nine states. None of the nine objections was considered because they lacked the signature of a senator.
[….]
In total, Republicans made objections to votes from six states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. By the end of the joint session, Biden’s 306 electoral votes were certified, just as Trump’s votes had been certified in 2017….
You may think that the idea of reeducation camps in America is crazy. But diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs are basically that. A tyrannical attack on thought. Even THE ATLANTIC knows it is an affront to freedom in their piece titled: “The Worst DEI Policy in Higher Education: At stake: the First Amendment rights and academic freedom of 61,000 professors who teach 1.9 million students”
… Under the changes to California’s education code, all community-college employees will be evaluated in a way that places “significant emphasis” on “antiracist” and “DEIA competencies.” […] For professors, that means all will be judged, whether in hiring, promotion, or tenure decisions, on their embrace of controversial social-justice concepts as those concepts are understood and defined by state education bureaucrats
[….]
… “Under the previous faculty contract, faculty were evaluated for their ‘demonstrated ability to successfully teach students from cultures other than one’s own,’” the FIRE lawsuit notes. “Under the DEIA Rules, however, they are now evaluated on their ‘demonstration of, or progress toward, diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) related competencies and teaching and learning practices that reflect DEIA and anti-racist principles.’” Before, professors were judged on whether they “successfully teach students.” Now they’ll be judged on whether they show progress toward abstract competencies that are theorized to help them successfully teach students.
That is a degradation, and Chancellor Christian should reverse course. Many First Amendment experts believe that the new guidelines will be found to violate the civil rights of faculty members. And even if they are upheld, their language and implementation suggestions are so incompetently drafted that even a leading proponent of equity-mindedness can’t quite endorse them as written. Whatever one thinks of social-justice ideology, there are far stronger versions of it.
This is the worst version of DEI.
Sick. But “conservatives are the fascists… got’chya.” (See my previous post regarding DEI: Free Speech Battles | California DEI Totalitarianism)
No reeducation camps for Democrats… just people who believe in traditional marriage, free thought and speech, those who think that being “color-blind” is the way to be. Etc., Etc.,
NEW (6/7/2024) Here is a clip from a somewhat decent ECONOMIST article… where they note the illiberal Left is all about power and caste systems:
… classical liberals and illiberal progressives could hardly disagree more over how to bring these things about. For classical liberals, the precise direction of progress is unknowable. It must be spontaneous and from the bottom up—and it depends on the separation of powers, so that nobody nor any group is able to exert lasting control. By contrast the illiberal left put their own power at the centre of things, because they are sure real progress is possible only after they have first seen to it that racial, sexual and other hierarchies are dismantled.
This difference in method has profound implications. Classical liberals believe in setting fair initial conditions and letting events unfold through competition—by, say, eliminating corporate monopolies, opening up guilds, radically reforming taxation and making education accessible with vouchers.
[….]
Progressives of the old school remain champions of free speech. But illiberal progressives think that equity requires the field to be tilted against those who are privileged and reactionary. That means restricting their freedom of speech, using a caste system of victimhood in which those on top must defer to those with a greater claim to restorative justice. It also involves making an example of supposed reactionaries, by punishing them when they say something that is taken to make someone who is less privileged feel unsafe. The results are calling-out, cancellation and no-platforming.
Milton Friedman once said that the “society that puts equality before freedom will end up with neither”. He was right. Illiberal progressives think they have a blueprint for freeing oppressed groups. In reality theirs is a formula for the oppression of individuals—and, in that, it is not so very different from the plans of the populist right. In their different ways both extremes put power before process, ends before means and the interests of the group before the freedom of the individual.
The FBI Just Admitted in Court That Hunter Biden’s Laptop Is Real
Kanekoa The Great notes that the FBI just confirmed, in court, that the laptop truly belongs to Hunter Biden. Something we all knew.
Before sharing the 20 minutes of Joe Biden, U.S. intelligence officials, and the American media claiming that Hunter Biden’s laptop was “Russian disinformation”, Kanekoa posted the following on TWIX:
The FBI just admitted in court that Hunter Biden’s laptop is real.
Here are 20 minutes of Joe Biden, U.S. intelligence officials, and the American media claiming that Hunter Biden’s laptop was “Russian disinformation.”
The FBI has had possession of Hunter’s laptop since December 2019.
Leading up to the 2020 election, Twitter and Facebook censored the Biden laptop story because the FBI warned them of a potential hack-and-leak operation targeting Hunter Biden.
The FBI knew that Hunter’s laptop was real the entire time.
In October 2022, @MarcoPolo501c3 published a 640-page Report on the Biden Laptop (AMAZON) that meticulously documents 459 crimes involving the Biden family and their associates.
The report provides evidence of Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) violations, money laundering, and tax fraud found on Hunter’s laptop.
It also exposes how federal law enforcement agencies, influenced by politics, protect the Biden family from prosecution while targeting President Biden’s primary election opponent, Donald Trump.
Shame on all of these people for lying to the American people, rigging our elections, and destroying the integrity of our nation.
WaPo’s Jennifer Rubin’s Favored Trope… “Fascist”
Question:
- Is Jonathan Turley a Fascist Jennifer Rubin?
And, if this is turned over in appeal, will that judge be a fascist according to the Left? Dennis Prager dals with the idea that even questioning the perfect storm of how we got to this trial in the first place is somehow “fascists.”
This is nothing new for Miss Rubin… here is a “for instance” from January 2024:
Here are the two latest articles by Jonathan Turley, the first is the one Dennis is reading from:
- The Ghost of John Adams: How the Trump Trial Harkens Back to a Dark Period of American Law
- Buzz Kill: The Trump Conviction Presents a Target-Rich Environment for Appeal