Lex Anteinternet: The American "Christian" Civil Religion meets real Christianity, and doesn't like it.

Lex Anteinternet: The American "Christian" Civil Religion meets real...:   

The American "Christian" Civil Religion meets real Christianity, and doesn't like it.

 

Episcopal Bishop Budde

You shall treat the alien who resides with you no differently than the natives born among you; have the same love for him as for yourself; for you too were once aliens in the land of Egypt.

Leviticus  19:33-34.

This comes out on a Sunday morning.  

Faithful Catholics are going to Mass today, as required by the Church, or went last night.  These are the readings for the day, which will also be read in some "main line" Protestant Churches that use the Catholic lectionary:

Reading 1

Nehemiah 8:2-4a, 5-6, 8-10

Ezra the priest brought the law before the assembly, which consisted of men, women, and those children old enough to understand.

Standing at one end of the open place that was before the Water Gate, he read out of the book from daybreak till midday, in the presence of the men, the women, and those children old enough to understand; and all the people listened attentively to the book of the law.

Ezra the scribe stood on a wooden platform that had been made for the occasion.

He opened the scroll so that all the people might see it— for he was standing higher up than any of the people —; and, as he opened it, all the people rose.

Ezra blessed the LORD, the great God, and all the people, their hands raised high, answered, "Amen, amen!" Then they bowed down and prostrated themselves before the LORD, their faces to the ground. Ezra read plainly from the book of the law of God, interpreting it so that all could understand what was read. Then Nehemiah, that is, His Excellency, and Ezra the priest-scribe and the Levites who were instructing the people said to all the people: "Today is holy to the LORD your God. Do not be sad, and do not weep"— for all the people were weeping as they heard the words of the law. He said further: "Go, eat rich foods and drink sweet drinks, and allot portions to those who had nothing prepared; for today is holy to our LORD. Do not be saddened this day, for rejoicing in the LORD must be your strength!"

Reading 2

1 Corinthians 12:12-30

Brothers and sisters: As a body is one though it has many parts, and all the parts of the body, though many, are one body, so also Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, slaves or free persons, and we were all given to drink of one Spirit.

Now the body is not a single part, but many. If a foot should say, "Because I am not a hand I do not belong to the body, "it does not for this reason belong any less to the body. Or if an ear should say, "Because I am not an eye I do not belong to the body, " it does not for this reason belong any less to the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole body were hearing, where would the sense of smell be? But as it is, God placed the parts, each one of them, in the body as he intended. If they were all one part, where would the body be? But as it is, there are many parts, yet one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, "I do not need you, " nor again the head to the feet, "I do not need you." Indeed, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are all the more necessary, and those parts of the body that we consider less honorable we surround with greater honor, and our less presentable parts are treated with greater propriety, whereas our more presentable parts do not need this. 

But God has so constructed the body as to give greater honor to a part that is without it, so that there may be no division in the body, but that the parts may have the same concern for one another. If one part suffers, all the parts suffer with it; if one part is honored, all the parts share its joy.

Now you are Christ's body, and individually parts of it. Some people God has designated in the church to be, first, apostles; second, prophets; third, teachers; then, mighty deeds; then gifts of healing, assistance, administration, and varieties of tongues. Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work mighty deeds? Do all have gifts of healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret?

Gospel

Luke 1:1-4; 4:14-21

Since many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the events that have been fulfilled among us, just as those who were eyewitnesses from the beginning and ministers of the word have handed them down to us, I too have decided, after investigating everything accurately anew, to write it down in an orderly sequence for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may realize the certainty of the teachings you have received.

Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news of him spread throughout the whole region. He taught in their synagogues and was praised by all.

He came to Nazareth, where he had grown up, and went according to his custom into the synagogue on the sabbath day. He stood up to read and was handed a scroll of the prophet Isaiah. He unrolled the scroll and found the passage where it was written: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord. Rolling up the scroll, he handed it back to the attendant and sat down, and the eyes of all in the synagogue looked intently at him.

He said to them, "Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing."

Faithful Orthodox using a different calendar will hear three readings as well, those being John 20:19-31, 1 Timothy 1:15-17 and  Matthew 15:21-28.

Donald and Melania Trump, and their son Barron, aren't going to hear any readings today, as they're not going to Church.  Melania is a non observant Catholic (her marriage to Donald Trump is invalid in the eyes of the Church) and Trump is from all observances non religious, in spite of Evangelicals having proclaimed him, with no evidence to support it, a man of God.

I find myself in a peculiar situation, in that as a Catholic who firmly believes that Episcopal holy orders are "completely null and utterly void", I'm rising to defend an Episcopal Bishop, and moreover one that I don't really know about in general.¹  

Moreover, as a Catholic who also believes that women may not be ordained to the priesthood, I'm rising to defend a female Episcopal cleric.

And in doing this, I'm recalling a homily delivered by a local young, highly orthodox, Catholic priest, that the being the "four things God hates homily".

Let's start off by recalling that, highlighting the part that applies here:

The Four Things.

Because I've referenced it more than one time, but apparently never posted it (cowardice at work) I'm going to post here the topic of "the four sins God hates".  I'm also doing this as I'm getting to a political thread about this years elections and the candidates, in the context of the argument of "Christians must. . . " or "Christians can. . . "

First I'll note using the word "hate", in the context  of the Divine, is a truncation for a much larger concept.  "Condemns" might have been a better choice of words, but then making an effective delivery in about ten minutes or less is tough, and truncations probably hit home more than other things.

Additionally, and very importantly, sins and sinners are different.  In Christian theology, and certainly in Catholic theology, God loves everyone, including those who have committed any one of these sins, or all of them.

This topic references a remarkably short and effective sermon I heard some time ago. The way my 61 year old brain now works, that probably means it was a few years ago.  At any rate, it was a homily based on all three of the day's readings, which is remarkable in and of itself, and probably left every member of the parish squirming a bit.  It should have, as people entrenched in their views politically and/or economically would have had to found something to disagree with, or rather be hit by.

The first sin was an easy one that seemingly everyone agrees is horrific, but which in fact people excuse continually, murder.

Murder is of course the unjust taking of a life, and seemingly nobody could disagree with that being a horrific sin. But in fact, we hear people excuse the taking of innocent life all the time.  Abortion is the taking of an innocent life.  Even "conservatives", however, and liberals as a false flag, will being up "except in the case of rape and incest".

Rape and incest are horrific sins in and of itself, but compounding it with murder doesn't really make things go away, but rather makes one horror into two.  Yes, bearing a child in these circumstances would be a horrific burden.  Killing the child would be too.

The second sin the Priest noted was sodomy.  He noted it in the readings and in spite of what people might like to say, neither the Old or New Testaments excuse unnatural sex. They just don't.  St. Paul is particularly open about this, so much so that a local female lesbian minister stated that this was just "St. Paul's opinion", which pretty much undercuts the entire Canon of Scripture.  

A person can get into Natural Law from here, which used to be widely accepted, and which has been cited by a United States Supreme Court justice as recently as fifty or so years ago, and the Wyoming Supreme Court more recently than that, and both in this context, but we'll forgo that in depth here. Suffice it to say that people burdened with such desires carry a heavy burden to say the least, but that doesn't make it a natural inclination.  In the modern Western World we've come to excuse most such burdens, however, so that where we now draw lines is pretty arbitrary. 

Okay, those are two "conservative" items.

The next wasn't.

That was mistreating immigrants.  

This sort of speaks for itself, but there it is. Scripture condemns mistreating immigrants.  You can't go around, as a Christian, hating immigrants or abusing them because of their plight.  

Abusing immigrants, right now, seems to be part of the Conservative "must do" list.

And the final one was failing to pay workmen a just wage.  Not exactly taking the natural economy/free market approach in the homily.

Two conservatives, and two liberal.

That's because Christianity is neither liberal or conservative, but Christianity.  People claiming it for their political battles this year might well think out their overall positions.

As I noted, two conservative items, and two liberal.

No murdering, no sodomy, no abusing immigrants, and no cheating people on their pay.

A homily nearly guaranteed to make everyone uncomfortable or angry.

Seems like everyone claiming to carry some sort of Christian banner in the deep Trump camp is only comfortable with one of those, now days.²

Bishop Budde directly addressed Donald Trump, and for that matter J. D. Vance.  You may have read what she said, but invoking the Jimmy Akin Citation Rule, you'll let you hear it for yourself.

This is homily is profoundly Christian.  There's nothing in it that any Christian can condemn.  So why are people condemning it.

Well, because it is profoundly Christian. She asks for mercy for the different, downtrodden, and immigrants.

Gasp!

Donald Trump, who is trying to yank citizenship from the "natural born", is taking exception to a Christian cleric's plea for mercy for everyone his policies impact.^3 4    Of course, he also ignored her comments about calling people names, accusing her of not being "smart", a frequent accusation by Trump (who might not be comfortable with his own smarts).

Well, this gets directly at the hypocrisy of some supporters of Trump who continually evoke religion, and particularly those who are in a certain evangelical camp.

For years now, we've been told by these people, including a fair number of clerics, that Trump, who has no discernable connection to any religion as an adult, doesn't seem to practice any religion, who is a serial polygamist with a horrific history towards women, and who is a member of the class that Christ warned less of a chance of getting to Heaven than a camel through an "eye of a needle", was a "Godly man". 

This has been a complete fraud.  There's no evidence that Trump is religious.  He attended Church only fourteen times during his first term of office.  He was confirmed a Presbyterian when he was young, a denomination he says he's no longer part of, but John Calvin would give him a dope slap for his personal conduct if he came back from the grave.⁵ 

What they really mean is they see him as somebody who going to restore and invoke a certain John Brown view of muscular evangelical Christianity.  Their religion is heavily mixed with right wing politics, and they see themselves as leading a march out of a metaphorical immoral Kansas.⁶  Trump is just, in their view, a God sent vehicle to get this done.

Put another way, as I've mentioned before, they see Trump as a sort of Cyrus the Great.⁷ They don't care that he isn't a Christian, as he's going to back their "Christian values".

And their values, frankly, express a deficit of Christianity. 

This is something we've seen before in the United States and it dates back, really, to the country being a protestant nation founded by migrating, and often dissenting, protestant sects.  If you looked at the "Pilgrims", for example, they really weren't all that nice.  Oliver Cromwell's Calvinism formed a background to a lot of the early religious history of the US, and Cromwell definitely wasn't nice.  Indeed, he ended up being so hated in his own country that the location of his head remains a secret, something imposed to prevent people from digging it up in anger.

In the past, Southern "evangelicals" were often backers of segregation.  Carrying forward to the current times, they see many of the descents from Christian moral standards, such as the intrusion of homosexuality into society in general and the pulpit in particular, as abominations.  At the same time, however, they continue to see things that they've widely accommodated as not much of a problem, at least not openly.  You aren't going to hear, for example, any evangelicals condemn divorce.  Locally I know at least two people who "lived in sin" and were really active members of a major evangelical church.  I've sort of known one person carrying the banner of Christian morality who is married to a divorced woman who is herself extremely right wing, which while common in the US, is something Christ specifically prohibited.

You really don't get the pick and choose option here.

The New Apostolic Reformation has embraced Trump in spades.  They feel that he'll, to put it in an old fashioned fashion, drive the Sodomites from the land and restore and impose a Evangelical Christian order.  A lot of them seem perfectly comfortable with policies that will hurt, at a human level, a group of people who are largely darked skinned, even if they don't hold personally racist views.

To be perfectly fair, a lot of American Catholics, completely dim on the nature of the New Apostolic Reformation, are going right along with this and supporting it, so we are far, far from being free of accusation here ourselves.^7b

That fact in and of itself will have some infesting implications.  The Episcopal Church is a "main line" Protestant religion that was once a major force in the country, but which accommodated itself to an ever growing list of things Christians have always considered sinful.  In the 1930s the Anglican Communion remained so close to Christian tradition, and close the Apostolic Christian tradition at that, that it caused a king to resign his thrown over divorce.  Now it doesn't worry much about divorce and is okay, in many places with homosexual "marriage".  Hence the accusation of "woke" aimed at the Bishop, even though she did not say a single thing that could be regarded as being woke in her homily.

I note this as Hispanics have come into the country they have been attracted to protestant and quasi Christian faiths in some numbers.  This isn't hugely surprising, even though the majority of Hispanics are cultural, if not practicing, Catholics, as these faiths seem more "American".  It's notable that in the novel, but not the movie adaptation of it, The Godfather Michael Corleone figure was disappointed when his protestant wife converted to Catholicism and started raising the children in that faith, as he hoped that they'd be members of the more "American", at that time, Episcopal Church.  Indeed, Catholics aspiring to be in the upper middle class in fact often did that until the 1960s, when Kennedy made being American and Catholic seemingly okay.⁸

In reality, it never actually became okay, as the Church will not accommodate itself to the culture of anyone nation, something that became increasingly obvious after 1973's Roe v. Wade decision.

It's been noted that Hispanics voted for Trump in large numbers this last election, a shift in political alignments that we predicated here quite awhile back. That reflects their cultural conservatism, which is to say that it reflects their cultural Catholicism.⁹   What they probably were not ready for is the degree of outright hatred a significant number of the Maga crowed have to anyone who isn't a White nominal protestant.  This started to become evident when Anne Coulter, a serious Presbyterian told Vivek Ramaswamy recently that she'd vote for him, but he isn't white.  Indeed, he's an Indian American Hindu.  Ramaswamy got the message and bailed out of the doggy agency, realizing that there was no future for him there.  He's going to run for the Governorship of Rust Belt Ohio where voters will likely inform him that he's not white, as its okay apparently to say that once again.

Indeed, there are a lot of under the breath mutterings about Usha Vance who isn't white, and who is a Hindu.   Oh my.

Chances are good that the Trump interregnum will have an impact on the Evangelicals in a major way, starting with this.  There isn't really a home in a lot of those churches for Christians who hail from a culture that didn't arise in Great Britain during the English Civil War.  When the disaster of Trump blows up, it's going to take the wind out of the sails of a lot of things associated with his movement, and most likely a lot of Hispanics out of the pews.

To be a real Christian, of course, has always meant that you didn't have a home in the world, and it still does.  It has also always meant that you'd be hated.  People want to hear that they can get rich on Earth and that its a sign of approval from Heaven.  They want to hear that some people don't really count, up to the point of their deaths, whether that be through neglect or judicial execution.  They want to be told that unnatural sexual unions are hated by God, but shacking up and affairs, as long as the plumbing is correct, aren't really a big deal.  They want to be told they can pay as little to their employees as they can get away with, and that's just God's plan.  And they want to be told they can hate the stranger, even the infant ones, if they weren't born in the right place.

They want "Christian values", as long a they weren't the ones Christians were martyerd for, and they're easy to do.  They're okay with the Sermon on the Mount, as long as it doesn't mean they really have to go to Church to hear it, and can stay home and watch football.

Now, does this apply to all Evangelicals?  Certainly not, and not by a long shot.  About 80% of white Evangelicals voted for Trump, but not all of them hold such views by any means.  58% of Catholics voted for Trump, that being a majority.  A lot of that may be explained in both instances by Democrats hugging the bloody body of abortion, which should be a lesson to them and one which we warned here was a mistake to do. And quite frankly much of what has come about was due to the developments brought about by Obergefell, which we warned would occur.¹⁰

So, horrified by a moral decay that became obvious with Obergefell, but having accommodated itself to a flood of moral decay that came before that, the American Civil Religion turned to an irreligious man who has no capacity for deep thought at all and who started whining, but only after some of his backers whined first, that a "woke" minister was interjecting religion into politics.

Politics and morality are inseparable. And as morality's foundation is religion, religion and politics are necessarily related. We need religion as a guide. We need it because we are imperfect, and our government needs the church, because only those humble enough to admit they're sinners can bring to democracy the tolerance it requires in order to survive.

Ronald Reagan.

Footnotes:

1.  The phrase is from Pope Leo XIII's encyclical Apostolicae Curae holding  Anglican ordinations to be invalid. 

I'm not hostile to Episcopalians, I'd note, I just agree that Pope Leo XIII was correct.  Apparently a lot of Episcopalians have over the years as there's been efforts to convey validity by cross ordinations from other churches that can demonstrate Apostolic succession, something the Methodist have done as well.  Some Anglican male priests do have valid holy orders, however, particularly if they were formerly Catholics.

2.  Trump reinstated the death penal for certain Federal offenses.  The Catholic Church generally takes the view that its obsolete and while the state is allowed to impose it under certain conditions, those conditions no longer exist in the modern world.

3. This is clearly a legally deficient argument and has been stayed by a court.

4.  Of interest, already there's been arguments that Trump's proclamation also deprives Native Americans of citizenship, a nasty shocking proposition.  This because Trump's AG office holds the view that birthright means "subject to the jurisdiction" of the US.

Of interest, if that's correct, Ted Cruz is not a U.S. citizen.  He was born in Canada.

5.  Presbyterians do allow for divorce, as a last resort, in cases of adultery, which Trump has experience with, or abandonment.

6.  Catholics that have been backing this best fear, as this camp is traditionally highly hostile to Catholicism, and many of its members wouldn't regard Catholics as Christians at all, even though Catholics are the original Christians.

7.  This analogy really fails. Cyrus the Great wasn't a bad man, in the context of his times and station.  He wasn't Jewish, and of course he lived well before the time of Christ, but he was charged with freeing the captive Jews under his dominion.

That's why some Evangelical Christians see Trump as a Cyrus.  Cyrus enormously benefitted the Jew, but he wasn't Jewish.  So, to those in the New Apostolic Reformation, Trump will be a Cyrus who lets them bring forth a new Evangelical Protestant nation.

Well, Cyrus would regard Trump as a pussy.  Moreover, Trump is just making us look like clowns and stands a much better chance of tainting Evangelical Christianity irredeemably.

7b.  Having said that,yanking the citizenship of the native born was the topic of an address by Catholic Cardinal Cupich.

Blog Mirror: Remarks of Cardinal Blase Cupich, archbishop of Chicago, regarding immigration at the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City

Remarks of Cardinal Blase Cupich, archbishop of Chicago, regarding immigration at the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City

Jan. 19, 2025

Español | Polski

While we wish the new administration success in promoting the common good, the reports being circulated of planned mass deportations targeting the Chicago area are not only profoundly disturbing but also wound us deeply. We are proud of our legacy of immigration that continues in our day to renew the city we love. This is a moment to be honest about who we are. There is not a person in Chicago, save the Indigenous people, who has not benefited from this legacy.

The Catholic community stands with the people of Chicago in speaking out in defense of the rights of immigrants and asylum seekers. Similarly, if the reports are true, it should be known that we would oppose any plan that includes a mass deportation of U.S. citizens born of undocumented parents.  

Government has the responsibility to secure our borders and keep us safe. We support the legitimate efforts of law enforcement to protect the safety and security of our communities—criminality cannot be countenanced, when committed by immigrants or longtime citizens. But we also are committed to defending the rights of all people, and protecting their human dignity. As such, we vigorously support local and state legislation to protect the rights of immigrants in Illinois. In keeping with the Sensitive Locations policy, in effect since 2011, we would also oppose all efforts by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other government agencies to enter  places of worship for any enforcement activities. 

The choice is not simply between strict enforcement and open borders, as some commentators would have us believe. Speaking this year to ambassadors accredited to the Holy See, for example, Pope Francis spoke of the need to balance migration governance with regard for human rights and dignity. “We are quick to forget that we are dealing with people with faces and names.” The Holy Father has also been clear that “no one should be repatriated to a country where they could face severe human rights violations or even death.” This is not idle speculation. Millions of migrants flee their homelands for safer shores precisely because it is a life or death issue for them and their children.

For members of faith communities, the threatened mass deportations also leave us with the searing question “What is God telling us in this moment?” People of faith are called to speak for the rights of others and to remind society of its obligation to care for those in need.  If the indiscriminate mass deportation being reported were to be carried out,  this would be an affront to the dignity of all people and communities, and deny the legacy of what it means to be an American.

He's not alone in this.  Other US Catholic bishops have made statements on this issue, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops condemned Trump's actions on immigration as well.

The Church does not maintain there should be "open borders", as some on the far left do.  Rather, it holds that immigration should be governed by four principles:

First Principle: People have the right to migrate to sustain their lives and the lives of their families.

Second Principle: A country has the right to regulate its borders and to control immigration. 

Third Principle: A country must regulate its borders with justice and mercy. 

8.  There was also a trend like this that followed World War Two with some returning US servicemen joining the (ironically) Lutheran Church as well as the Episcopal Church which seemed more American and local.

While widely missed, there's a counter trend today with young conservatives and traditionalist joining the Catholic and Orthodox churches, and some very devout Evangelicals joining the Orthodox Church after being exposed to the early history of the Church.

9.  I've already seen one video clip by a Hispanic Trump voter horrified over the deportations, claiming he promised to do no such thing.

No he didn't.  But this is an interesting example of how people convince themselves a politician holds their own views because he holds some views that they like.

10.  We specifically stated:  These justices have perhaps assumed too much if they've assumed that they can now act so far that Marshall would be horrified, and I'd be surprised if, long term, this decision doesn't either mark the beginning of a Cesarian court and a retreat of American democracy, or the point at which the roles of the Court began to massively erode in favor of a more Athenian democracy.

Either result is really scary.

Related threads:

The Four Things.

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist. XLV. At War With Nature and the Metaphysical

What's wrong with the (modern, western) world, part 2. Care, lack of care, and an existential lack of focus.

The Agrarian's Lament: A sort of Agrarian Manifesto. What's wrong with the world (and how to fix it). Part 1. How the barbarians took over the city.

Something in the wind, part 2 of 3. The rise of the radical populist right. A second look at the Italian election. . . and a bunch of other stuff.

Something in the wind, part 3 of 3. The rise of the radical populist right. Getting what you wish for.

The line from Kennedy to Trump. . and from democracy to the reeducation camp. Judicial blundering and its impact.

Why Americans, irrespective of position, ought to cringe over Obergefell

Lex Anteinternet: Saturday, January 11, 1975. Storms. Things can, and do, get worse.

Lex Anteinternet: Saturday, January 11, 1975. Storms. Things can, ...: 

Saturday, January 11, 1975. Storms. Things can, and do, get worse.

The cover, page 3, and back cover, of Zhwandūn (ژوندون : مجله هفتگى), an Afghani magazine.

As I can't read the captions, I'm not entirely sure, but this appears to be Julie Christie, the actress.

Women's fashions appropriate for January in Afghanistan, but which would now get a person arrested given the Trump surrender to the Taliban.

Oh well, it's not us, right?  And things can't get worse for us, right?

The Great Storm of 1975 was in full swing.

Surface weather analysis of the Great Storm on 11 January 1975.

Last edition:

Ralph Emery Show with Ernest Tubb & Justin Tubb -- January 9, 1975

Labels: 1970s, 1975, Bluegrass, Music

Lex Anteinternet: Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist. 70th Edition. But fo...

Lex Anteinternet: Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist. 70th Edition. But fo...: 

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist. 70th Edition. But for Wales, Welcome to Appalachia and pointless Presidential Sedevacantism musing.

Today Congress will certify the results of the 2024 election.  Unlike last time, as Trump agrees with the results this time, it'll go smoothly and with little drama.

It's a good time for this post.

The good, the bad, and the ugly.

Governor Freundenthal laying down the law.

We ran a couple of items on historic Wyoming inaugurations yesterday, one for Ed Herschler and the other for Nellie Tayloe Ross

Sunday, January 5, 1975. Ed Herschler inaugurated.

January 5, 1925. Nellie Tayloe Ross sworn in as Governor.

Both were Democrats.

I remember Herschler, who is regarded even today as Wyoming's most popular Governor.  That caused me to think and realize that during my lifetime, the Governor's office in Cheyenne has bee occupied by Democrats over half the time, and I'm 61 years old. Those Governors were:

Gov. Matthew Mead  2011 - 2019  Republican

Gov. Dave Freudenthal 2003 - 2011 Democratic

Gov. Jim Geringer 1995 - 2003 Republican

Gov. Michael J. Sullivan 1987 - 1995 Democratic

Gov. Edward Herschler 1975 - 1987 Democratic

Gov. Stanley K. Hathaway 1967 - 1975 Republican

Gov. Clifford P. Hansen 1963 - 1967 Republican

Of those men, and they've all been men, in my view Hathaway was the best.  He brought in the severance tax over the panic crying and whining of the legislature at the time.  

He wouldn't be successful doing that now

Herschler was likely the second best.

There hasn't been a bad one save for Geringer, who I was not impressed with at the time, and I'm still not.

Freudenthal was our last Democratic Governor.  I'm quite confident that there isn't a Democrat in the state who could win that office today.  The Democratic Party here is darned near dead.

Freudenthal was always blunt and gruff.  He had been a U.S. Attorney and in his speech he sort of reminds me of a more erudite variant of a Clint Eastwood character.  For that matter, at least prior to being Governor, he packed a .44 Mag around, concealed.  It was named "Due Process".

The Republican part is struggling.  It's been taken over by Populists, who really aren't Republicans.

I noted the Populist "Five and Dime" program here the other day.  It turns out that Freudenthal now writes a newsletter in Wyoming for the AARP.  I'm not a member of the AARP as I'm not retired, so I didn't read it.  But I've read about it, and he notes that the nickel and dime program's tax programs will gut municipal resources.  

It simply will.

I wonder if the Wyoming Freedom Caucus doesn't realize that, or if they just don't care.  My guess is that its a combination of both.

Property taxes in Wyoming are pretty much where money for police, firemen, roads, and everything, come from.  It's where the money for education comes from too.  I don't think the WFC folks care much about education, and I'm not too certain, given that so many of them are imports, they don't care about the rest of that either.  They probably don't really go out in their towns and counties much, and are happy in their newly built house which is driving up property values. They just don't want to be taxed.

A lot of services in this state, and education, are first rate, but everything is pretty lean.  This will change the state, and for the worse.  

Welcome to Appalachia.

But for Wales.

From Senator Barrasso's Facebook page, on July 28, 2020.  Along with the photograph, was this post: "I would like to wish a very Happy Birthday to Representative Liz Cheney. It is a privilege to represent and serve the people of Wyoming with you."

For Wales? Why Richard, it profit a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world. . . but for Wales!

A Man for All Seasons.

President Biden indicated the other day he was giving former Wyoming Congressman Liz Cheney the second highest award that a civilian can be given.

Our Senator, John Barrasso, has condemned this, stating:

President Biden was either going to pardon Liz Cheney or give her an award. She doesn’t deserve either. She represents partisanship and divisiveness — not Wyoming.

Barrasso is the Senate Whip right now, and in Donald Trump's GOP, now that McConnell has stepped aside as the leader of the Senate Republicans, that means the Whip does Trump's bidding.

Barrasso is probably right that Congressman Cheney no longer represents Wyoming's view.  We don't really know what his views are, as they've sort of blown with the wind as he started to sense he was in political trouble going into the primary. There was no doubt what so ever that his main opponent was definitely a Trumpite and far to the right.  If anything, Barrasso moved to the right of that candidate.

But I'll confess that I don't understand many of our current politicians, or certainly our Republican ones.  I've met some in one way or another. At least Barrasso would never have said what he did about Cheney prior to Trump.

I don't believe that he believes, really, what he said.

I don't understand wanting an elected position so badly that you'll compromise yourself and say what you don't believe.  I particularly don't grasp it in the case of a man who is 72 years old and who could, and really should, retire.

Is being whip that intoxicating?

It must be.

And how odd that at the same time that Barrasso is condemning somebody that he once got along with, he's praising, along with Cynthia Lummis, the late President Carter as “the personification of the American dream,” 

That statement, I'd note, comes along with the usual crap that Carter rose from humble yeoman peanut farmer to the Oval Office.  Carter, as we've already noted, was a Naval Academy trained nuclear engineer who had served in the Navy's submarine service.  To have done that means he was a genius.

He was also deeply Christian and wouldn't compromise his views for anything.

Rep. Harriet Hageman, R-Wyo., stated, on Twitter:

President Jimmy Carter worked tirelessly for the country he loved, and we owe him a debt of gratitude for his service.

How can we owe Carter a debt of gratitude, which I agree we do, and not owe the same to former President Obama, or former President Biden? 

A Catholic saint who had been a lawyer (I've forgotten his name) declared to a friend before entering the Priesthood that he was leaving the law as it was too easy to lose your soul in the profession.  How much more true must that be for politicians, for reasons that I can hardly grasp.  

Entering a season of danger.

I fear that we're entering what will prove to be a very destructive and dangerous era.  

We shouldn't be surprised.

Politics is always full of extreme claims, but starting with the Obama Presidency, they began to enter the Bat Shit Crazy region, and not through Obama or the "establishment" Democrats.  The reaction to Obama was in some quarters very extreme.

Trump picked up on that and has incorporated it into his schtick.  A salesman by trade who formerly hung out with the rich and shallow, he realized that a disgruntled body of Americans were ready to listen to him, no matter what he said.

Since his defeat in 2019, he's yielded to really crazy and hateful statements.  People hate the comparison, but he's used the same demonization tactic that Hitler did.  Your problems are caused by somebody else, and that person is evil.  By January 6, 2020, a substantial body of the public had come to believe that.

That event was sort of our Reichstag moment, and things are going to get worse.  So now we have a deluded and likely mentally ill U.S. Army Master Sergeant blow himself up in a Tesla in front of a Trump hotel, in Los Vegas, claiming to be in support of Trump. 

MSG Livelsberger was likely pretty nuts and perhaps suffering from injuries that contributed to what he did.  But what's not really been circulated is what his full note said.  Somebody has published it, but I didn't save the link.  The truncated note says:

We are the United States of America, the best country people to ever exist! But right now we are terminally ill and headed toward collapse.

This was not a terrorist attack, it was a wake up call. Americans only pay attention to spectacles and violence. What better way to get my point across than a stunt with fireworks and explosives?

Why did I personally do it now? I needed to cleanse my mind of the brothers I’ve lost and relieve myself of the burden of the lives I took.

An email he left states:

In case I do not make it to my decision point or on to the Mexico border I am sending this now. Please do not release this until 1JAN and keep my identity private until then.

First off I am not under duress or hostile influence or control. My first car was a 2006 Black Ford Mustang V6 for verification.

What we have been seeing with "drones" is the operational use of gravitic propulsion systems powered aircraft by most recently China in the east coast, but throughout history, the US. Only we and China have this capability. Our OPEN location for this activity in the box is below.

China has been launching them from the Atlantic from submarines for years, but this activity recently has picked up. As of now, it is just a show of force and they are using it similar to how they used the balloon for sigint and isr, which are also part of the integrated coms system. There are dozens of those balloons in the air at any given time.

The so what is because of the speed and stealth of these unmanned AC, they are the most dangerous threat to national security that has ever existed. They basically have an unlimited payload capacity and can park it over the WH if they wanted. It's checkmate.

USG needs to give the history of this, how we are employing it and weaponizing it, how China is employing them and what the way forward is. China is poised to attack anywhere in the east coast

I've been followed for over a week now from likely homeland or FBI, and they are looking to move on me and are unlikely going to let me cross into Mexico, but won't because they know I am armed and I have a massive VBIED. I've been trying to maintain a very visible profile and have kept my phone and they are definitely digitally tracking me.

I have knowledge of this program and also war crimes that were covered up during airstrikes in Nimruz province Afghanistan in 2019 by the admin, DoD, DEA and CIA. I conducted targeting for these strikes of over 125 buildings (65 were struck because of CIVCAS) that killed hundreds of civilians in a single day. USFORA continued strikes after spotting civilians on initial ISR, it was supposed to take 6 minutes and scramble all aircraft in CENTCOM. The UN basically called these war crimes, but the administration made them disappear. I was part of that cover-up with USFORA and Agent [Redacted] of the DEA. So I don't know if my abduction attempt is related to either. I worked with GEN Millers 10 staff on this as well as the response to Bala Murghab. AOB-S Commander at the time. [Redacted] can validate this.

You need to elevate this to the media so we avoid a world war because this is a mutually assured destruction situation.

For vetting my Linkedin is Matt Berg or Matthew Livelsberger, an active duty 18Z out of 1-10 my profile is public. I have an active TSSCI with UAP USAP access."

Okay, he was pretty much bat shit crazy.  But in an era in which people listen to Tucker Carlson and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., . . . well you are going to get bat shit.

And then there's  Luigi Mangione.

Absolutely frighting meme endorsing murder.  That this is going around, is telling.

We haven't heard from him yet, but we all know that Luigi Mangione murdered the head of United Health Care seemingly because he was the head of United Health Care.

Moreover, some people are celebrating the murder.

That's outright scary.  And its interesting. I can't recall terrorist attacks against corporate officers, except in extreme times. There was of course the famous Wall Street Bombing of 1920, which shows up on this site as we covered its 100th Anniversary.  

Who would have expected something like that to return?

And then there were the radical groups of the 1970s, which seemed to be something that was behind us.

A lot of the same rage that fueled the rise of Trump fuels an anger like this, even though Trump himself is a very wealthy man and is now backed by the world's richest man, Elon Musk. 

On New Years Day a Muslim American from Texas, who was a U.S. Army veteran, performed an act of terrorism in New Orleans. The perpetrator may have also entered the bat shit region.  Apparently he left a note that he originally intended to act in support of ISIL by killing his family, which is downright bizarre.  He changed his mind and hit New Orleans, leaving a note that he conceived of himself in a war between believers and non believers.  Hitting New Orleans makes sense, in that contexts, although the press seems to have missed it, as its so heavily associated with a Catholic religions event, lent, in the form of a heavily secularized observation, Mardi Gras.

This attack is definitely different, I guess, and actually feeds into something that Trumpites have long maintained, that being that non Christian societies don't necessarily integrate well here.  Indeed, an irony of the 2024 election is that Muslims upset about the US supporting Israel in the current war didn't support Harris, and now are going to see a President who is in the Israel can do no wrong camp.

Am I blaming Trump for all of this?

No.

Some of it?

Well, sort of.

The same sort of ardent anger that gave rise to populist MAGA and the January 20 insurrection gives rise to an atmosphere where some serving members of the military feel they need to strike out against an imaginary domestic enemy.  Moreover, those inclined to political violence over their plight, often have no clear direction in how they do it.

Students of history would do well to recall that more than one member of the Nazi Party had been members of the German Communist Party. The rage that fueled a misbegotten fanatic love of the worst President in American history can just as easily turn on him, or on those conceived of as being class enemies, or contribute to an atmosphere of violence in general.

I have some predications regarding this.  And I'm going to leap back to Sen. Barrasso, who posted this in the wake of the attacks.

After what we saw in New Orleans, it is critical that the Senate confirms President Trump’s national security team as quickly as possible.

Eh?  How so?

Well, seeing as this refers to New Orleans, my first prediction is that the MAGA camp that is hostile to all immigrants is the one that will prevail.  Rather, the one that is hostile to all "alien" cultures is the one that will prevail.  Sorry Vivek Ganapathy Ramaswamy, you ain't a White Anglo Saxon Protestant, so you need to leave. 

That will be the view.

I'm not saying that's Dr. Barrasso's view.  I strongly suspect that the Wyoming Senator's views on things are much, much, much, much further to the left than his statements suggest, and much, much, much further to the left than those even held by traditional Wyomingites.  I don't even think he thought that out.  It just sounds like a good thing to say in your role as whip.

I will note that both attacks share one single commonality.  They were carried out by veterans of the United States Army.  There has been an ongoing investigation into extremism in the military, but my guess is that this isn't what Sen. Barrasso is talking about.  Indeed, the GOP was quick to leap on the thesis that the New Orleans attack was carried out by a recent immigrant, which it wasn't. And the second attack. . . that was carried out by a Green Beret.

One of my predictions is that we're going to see a violent couple of years.

The other is that within a year and a half the editorial pages of the American Rifleman, who fawned over Trump, will be decrying a GOP embrace of gun control.  Fans of radicals who proclaim themselves to be for democracy and freedom while ranting about others as enemies should here to study history.  

Gun control came in to the USSR with the Communists, after they'd secured power at the barrel of a gun.  It was the Irish Republicans who brought gun control into Ireland, after the republic had been won with guns.  People like to claim the Nazis brought gun control to Germany (they didn't), but those who like to yell that should recall that Hitler was elected into office as part of a populist movement that promised to fix the economy and which hated "others", so to speak.

As soon as Trump sees the populace as the enemy to his safety, he'll act to preserve himself.  It's not, after all, as if he's been competing at Camp Perry and he doesn't need anyone's vote in four years.  If he acts, what are those who supported him on this issue going to do, join the Democrats?

A third, and final, prediction.  Wyoming won't see one single good thing come its way due to the Trump Administration.  All the things that people imagine will occur, won't.  There won't be more oil drilled in some magic fashion.  The coal industry won't come roaring back.  Agriculture, and by that I mean real agriculture, will suffer due to trade policies.  Inflation will increase.

Waiting in the wings.

One final prediction.

There's a really good chance that much of what I'm noting won't come about for one reason.

J. D. Vance.

I don't want to sound like a Vance booster.  I'm not.  I do think he'd make a much better President that Trump, however, as he's not demented.

My guess is that Vance has an 18 month schedule for removing Trump.

Presidential Sedevacantism. Musing on something that won't occur. 

I've noticed that some have been developing a desperate set of legal theories proposing that Donald "Felonious Balonius, Potty Mouth" Trump can't be sworn in as President.

Well, he will be, but its interesting.

Let's start with this.

Donald Trump won the 2024 election, taking the popular vote as well as the electoral.  The popular vote part is really amazing, quite frankly, and something that probably even Trump didn't anticipate.  Indeed, it wasn't all that long ago that the Republican Party itself seriously wondered if it was doomed to demographic extinction, and the Democrats planned on it being and Trump was already creating lies on why he'd lost.

We'll note we were ahead of the curve on the demographic aspect in predicting that the Democrats, and for that matter the Republicans, on that, were likely wrong.

So Trump was elected, he will be sworn into office, and he will be the President in late January.  I'm not going to say for the next four years, as frankly, I've been amazed that neither Trump or Biden expired due to natural causes before now, and I don't really expect either of them to make it through the next four. 

I also expect, as is obvious, for Vance to wheel him out the door into managed health care at Mara Largo.

They are, after all, old.

Okay, so what are people pondering?

Well, purely as an exercise, could a case be made that Trump will not be the President?  Some are musing on that.

Well, you can (even though this is not going to occur).

Trump, is a felon.  He was convicted of 34 counts of falsifying business records.

This is an odd conviction, frankly. I really think those charges were fairly weak.  I question if they'll hold up on appeal.  But, be that as it may, he's been convicted of 34 counts of what amounts to a felony.

Let's look at felonies.

Blackstone, looking back at the long history of the term, maintained that “the true criterion of fel e also acknowledges a change in meaning over time: “The idea of felony is, indeed, so generally connected with that of capital punishment that we find it hard to separate them . . . .”19 As the definition of felony became less definitely tied to forfeiture and the use of capital punishment became more general, the number of felonies in English law multiplied. The traditional common law felonies were nine: murder, manslaughter, arson, burglary, robbery, rape, sodomy, mayhem, and larceny.20 Many more were added by statute. Francis Bacon, writing around 1620, listed some thirty-four felonies, including witchcraft and harboring a priest.21 Blackstone lamented that, in his day, “no less than a hundred and sixty [offenses] have been declared by act of parliament to be felonies . . . or, in other words, to be worthy of instant death

Unintended Collateral Consequences: Defining Felony in the Early American Republic.  Will Tress  University of Baltimore School of Law 

Sedevacantism is a hyper ultra extreme traditionalist Catholic thesis by a tiny minority that holds that the Seat of Peter, i.e., the office of Pope, is vacant and has been since 1958, or maybe even early.

It's frankly out to lunch, and so the thesis advanced below, a political thesis, likely is as well.

But I'll advance it anyhow.

Donald Trump cannot legitimately be sworn in as President in January, and therefore the administering of the oath of office to him will work a nullity, and there will be no President for the next four years.

Eh?

A felon cannot be sworn into office due to forfeiture.  That's the essence of forfeiture.

A photo of Donald Trump that appeared this week on Twitter.  I don't know the source.  It's postered here for another reason.  When Trump is caught in candid moments, which is fairly rarely, he looks like what he is, an old out of shape man.  His ramblings of this past week once again have raised questions on his mental status.  I continue to be surprised that old age didn't catch up on a permanent basis with either Biden or Trump, but then I'm still not convinced that either one of them, or at least one of them, will not expire due to natural causes before the inauguration.  I'm also convinced that the National Conservatives are already pondering removing him from office due to mental decline.

Now, the Constitution doesn't mention felonies at all.  Indeed, it'd hardly have to as the death penalty for the collection of them would make it unlikely that a felon would ever run for office.

That's likely why the Constitution just speaks of "high crimes and misdemeanors" when it refers to impeachment.

And it also says that Congress "may" impeach for those reasons, not must. 

Anyhow, not going to happen.

A more interesting one is the application of the 14th Amendment, which bars insurrectionist from office. 

Trump is an insurrectionist, so those who claim he's barred by the 14th Amendment are 100% correct.  He is.

But the 14th Amendment is a 19th Century amendment and much of the law before the early 20th Century was vague by modern standards.  Indeed, this is constantly a problem with Constitutional interpretation, and provides the reason that scholars and the courts have to look back in time to try to figure out what the drafters meant.

This is a really interesting one.  When drafted, everyone knew who the insurrectionist were, they were the Southerners who betrayed their country by serving in the Southern governments and thier armies.  But it doesn't' actually say that.

Apparently, nobody felt it had to.  The amendment worked just find and when people wanted back in, after repenting of their treason, they were provided with a legal means of doing so.  

Given that, the way this works is really weird in a current context.  You are supposed to just presume somebody is an insurrectionist, if they participated in an insurrection, and its up to them to ask for legal forgiveness.  If you don't think you were guilty of insurrection, you'd have to challenge it in court and prove you weren't, which is the reverse of the legal norms.

This causes all sorts of problems in a modern context. There's been no legal declaration, outside of Colorado, that an insurrection occurred.  Does that work?  Who knows, it hadn't been tested.

Indeed, what this would require would be an immediate legal challenge in the Federal Courts, or a mass refusal to swear Trump in, neither of which are going to occur, and frankly probably shouldn't.  It would provoke a constitutional crisis, at this point, which is likely to be worse than having Trump be the presumed President, at least for the next 18 months.

But if we assume all of this is correct, and that its' challenged, and ultimately a Federal Court gets around to ruling, "yup, he wasn't President", who would be?

Well, until somebody was sworn in, maybe nobody.

More likely, the Court would backdoor in his status until the legal decision was made.

None of this, we'd note, is going to happen.  No court challenge is going to be made, and probably none should be.  

Last edition.

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist, 69th Edition. TDS, Vance in the wings. Our geriatric oligarchy. Immigration spats. Banning puberty blockers. Mjuk flicka and the Mantilla Girls.

Labels: Donald Trump, Elon Musk, J. D. Vance, mehr Mensch sein, National Conservatism, Old Age, Populism, The rich and the poor, The roles of men and women, Trump Derangement Syndrome, Zeitgeist

Lex Anteinternet: New Year's Resolutions for Other People, sort of.

Lex Anteinternet: New Year's Resolutions for Other People, sort of.: 

New Year's Resolutions for Other People, sort of.

Some years I post basically satiric resolutions for other people.

2024 was not a great year in a lot of ways, and 2025 promises not to be, thus making anything comedic seem rather inappropriate.

So this is a bit more serious.

The general election of 2024 was truly the worst one in the country's history.  Two ancient men were offered up by the nation's two major political parties, with those parties only agreeing on the lie that you must vote for one of the two of them.  The Democratic Party, which emerged for a while after World War Two as a center left party representing the working class, completed its post Vietnam War lurch to the far left and couldn't claw its way back from there.  The Republican Party, formerly the party of conservatism and business, was destroyed by Donald Trump and his populist minions, a process set in motion in the 1970s and Reagan's Southern Strategy, thereby becoming a new expression of the Dixiecrats.  The attack on education that began in the 1980s under Reagan seemed to bear weedy fruit as well, as middle class Americans, and some upper class Americans, grasped onto utter fictions offered up by Trump and company which promised to return the country to a fictional perfect past.  Many voters, of course, felt trapped and voted both for and against politicians based on social issues which the Democrats in particular had helped bring into the forefront resulting in their defeat.

So, some serious hopes, if not resolutions.

Americans need to quit believing in something because it sounds like something they wish to be true.

We can't be an island insulated from the world.  We've hoped to some degree to that since day one, but we've never been close to achieving that status.  George Washington may have urged us to avoid foreign entanglements but we were involved, on an undeclared basis, in what were essentially two world wars by the early part of the 19th Century, one against France, and another against the United Kingdom and her allies.  While many have long declared that "we aren't the world's policeman", if we aren't there's hardly any police at all.  And if new police arise, there's a really good chance we won't like it.  Our best hope, if we get to that point, is that its the combined countries of Europe, but what if, instead, its the People's Republic of China?

The internet and modern travel have shrunk the world so much that there's no escaping the impact of even minor disruptions around the globe.  A war in Ukraine increases the cost of pasta in Italy and groceries, thereafter, in the US, as the most minor of examples.

We can whine about "forever wars" but the truth of the matter is that we haven't fought a substantial war since we backed out of Vietnam in 1973.  Even at that, there were fewer men garrisoned in Vietnam at the height of the American involvement in the war than there were involved in the Battle of the Bulge, which of course was a single American World War Two battle.  All wars are serious and horrible, but the post Vietnam War conflicts we've been in have, in real terms, been minor in comparison to anything that came after 1975's fall of Saigon.

We can't ignore the globe.

Climate Change is real and needs to be addressed basically 30 years ago. There is still time to act, but that action needs to be massive and drastic.  Believing that this isn't the case is an example of willful denial of science and ultimately an act of theft, if not murder, of future generations.  Denying this because my income is based on oil, and I freely concede much of mine is, doesn't change the reality.

Science of all types needs to be taken seriously.  Sure, it isn't always right, but it's more often right than the ravings of somebody who bases their positions on the spouting of former Playboy centerfolds or quack celebrities.¹

On this, vaccinations work.  They do.  If you don't want to get vaccinated, don't, but don't pretend that's because Bill Gates is looking for a way to steal your lunch.

On science, we need to comport more to nature.  That includes our own natures.  Poisoning the womb and murdering infants in the womb isn't "health care", its poisoning yourself and murdering your offspring.  Its' deeply anti natural.

Along the same lines, there are only two genders in mammals. That's it.  You, smart primate, are a member of the most sexually dimorphic species on the planet and are either deeply male or female.  Those pretending otherwise as to their persons are mentally ill, either temporarily or perhaps more permanently.  Society doesn't need to accommodate, in any fashion, this illness.

Homosexuality is the same, some sort of disorder, but not one that presents a societal threat through its tolerance.  It does, however, due to excess accommodation.  One of the world's oldest institutions, marriage, has been so damaged.  But much damage had already been done to marriage due to the erosion of a serious understanding of what it is.

Of course, that was long in coming and gets to the next topic.  Many societal institutions exist for the preservation and protection of society itself, not to make you "happy" or "fulfilled".  Starting in 1953 we began the massive erosion of societal institutions and its been a complete disaster.  There needs to be a serious effort to claw back that which has been lost, including in this area.  There's no reason to tolerate extramarital procreation, whether its by some nameless drug addict or Elon Musk.  Societal norms need to be restored.² 

This gets necessarily to the topic of religion, which has been in the news constantly this year.  It's odd if you realize that we can now so easily access early Christian texts that we can determine what early Christians believed very easily, and it often doesn't look anything like what's coming from The New Apostolic Reformation, or for that matter the "reformed" branches of the 16th Century Reformation, none of which has kept people from imagining Donald Trump as a latter day Cyrus the Great.

In 2024, when the writings of 124 AD are easily available, "religious" Americans who feel that Christianity stops at their own front door and that what they do is okay as they do it, are often far off the mark.  Finding Donald Trump to be a "Godly man" with his serial polygamy and what not is absurd, but then people getting married again and again and pretending that comports with the faith also are out to lunch.  It's not just Christianity, we'd note, that suffers from this.

Nature cares little if you accept nature and its doctrines.  It simply gives the dope slap to those who don't.  Not immediately, but sooner or later.  The Populists who seized control of the country have a chance to recreate the county into what they imagine it should be, but only if they accept that.  Chances are, of course, that National Conservatives will rapidly eclipse them in a year or two with Donald Trump's inevitable passing or inescapable dementia, and like it or nor, they appear to have a firmer grasp on this.  People should ponder it and try to get a grasp themselves.  

Part of that would be that if you feel a politician or a super rich dude has your interest in mind, or that if you believe that economics serves your own economic interest because it must, or if you feel that God abhors your homosexual neighbor but is okay with your third marriage, you need to rethink things.

Footnotes

1.  Jenny McCarthy, who seems to have dropped off the public radar, was famous initially for being a brash Playboy centerfold was an early backer of the vaccines cause autism baloney. They do not.  Now we see Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., backing that absurd view.

2.  The other day I saw an item on Twitter in some dimwit on Twitter claiming some level of authority stated:

Taylor @taylor_vahey

waiting until marriage to have sex with someone is incredibly stupid due to the fact that sometimes two people are not sexually compatible

do not wait until you are locked in for life to find that out

That post is so moronic, on multiple levels, that it could lead to a long thread itself, but only a blistering rich and narcissistic society would even have a concept in some quarters of sexual compatibility.

Our species, homo sapiens sapiens, has gone from nearly being driven to extinction 900,000 years ago to dominating the globe.  We know for a fact that homo sapiens sapiens mated with homo sapiens neaderthalensis, and we're we're learning that we, and the Neanderthals, mated with the Denisovans.  Sexual compatibility doesn't seem to be a human problem.

Last edition:

Honesty and Authenticity. Resolutions.

Labels: Authenticity, Honesty, Introspection, New Year's Resolutions