Lex Anteinternet: The End of the Reformation I. Christian Nationalism becomes a local debate. . .

Lex Anteinternet: The End of the Reformation I. Christian Nationali...:

The End of the Reformation I. Christian Nationalism becomes a local debate. . .

even though, I'd wager, most people don't actually know what it means.

Indeed, I don't think author Stubson actually does.

Luther at Erfurt. Father of the Reformation, and in many ways the father of the modern world, ironically on both the left, and the right.

Local attorney, expert pianist, and occasional op ed writer Susan Stubson wrote an op ed for the New York Times on the topic of her faith, her political party, and Christian Nationalism.  She is, as noted, a Wyomingite.

Stubson, I'd also note, is part of a political family.  Perhaps for that reason she can do what some even more frequent writers. . . namely me, cannot really, which is to sail into troubled waters under her own flag.  It may be cowardice on my part, but I really don't feel that I can.  I’m blunt to people who know me, but I'm not a politician and, as I recently noted here, while I once toyed with the idea, my time is past.  I still have to make a living, however. 

Anyhow, Stubson's NYT piece stated boldly in its caption was:

What Christian Nationalism Has Done to My State and My Faith Is a Sin

That was bound to provoke a reaction, and of course it did.  One of the reactors was the same letter writing dude who earlier tried to take on the Wyoming 41 in the same journal.  While it's digressing, I'll note what I wrote about that letter at the time, in which he stated as follows:

2. Your self-serving statement that lawyers have done more than any other profession makes me nauseous.  Talk to those who have served in the military to protect our constitutional republic, to include making us a free nation.  Talk to those who have served and lost limbs and have many other maladies that they received in battle.  Talk to the families of those who have given their lives for this nation in war.  Then you should reevaluate your arrogant statement about having done more than any other profession.  You should be ashamed.  You will better understand my ire on this issue when you have read my letter.

This time he wrapped himself in the flag less, and was less antagonist towards the lawyer author, stating:

Dear Editor:

It was an interesting article to read about Susan Stubson, Casper Attorney, saying that Christian Nationalists have “hijacked" the Wyoming Republican Party.  She says that they are, “super engaged are real extreme right, and they are gaining.”  

Apparently, Stubson thinks that it is a terrible thing that what she calls “Christian Nationalists” are involved in being “super engaged” in the political process and are “voting.”  This brings up so many points about the hideous bias of her view that it is quite nauseating.  Here are just a couple of points to consider:

- Her statements make it very clear that she does not know what a “Christian" is. If they go to any church, then they must be a Christian.  This is not true.  As a Christian myself, Stubson needs to understand that a true Christian is one who has put his or her (yes, only 2 genders) faith in Jesus Christ for forgiveness of their sin and then proceeds to love their neighbor.  Because Stubson is misguided…for which my letter calls her out…does not mean that I have a lack of love for her.  I just want her to know the error of her thinking so that she might become a true Christian.

- Her statements also show that she does not know what a “Nationalist” is.  This word is used to try to demean people as being crazy reactionaries who seek to have authoritarian or dictatorial control…kind of like the Wyoming Speaker of the House who won’t even allow debate in the House on issues that that matter to the citizens of Wyoming.  After 26 years in the US Air Force, I consider myself a Nationalist.  My country comes first, but not to the detriment of other countries, or to the detriment of any US citizen…regardless of their political beliefs.  If the US is strong, then we seek to protect other countries as we have  in the past, where tyranny has attempted to take hold.  We didn’t cut and run as Biden did with Afghanistan, which resulted in thousands upon thousands of murders by the Taliban using weapons that Biden left for them.

- Based on Stubson's views, I am a danger to her ideologies in Wyoming.  And to that, I say, “Hurrah!”  I wonder if she has ever written a 1736-word op-ed piece for the New York Times to condemn the riots and horrendous destruction by Antifa and BLM?  Has she ever come out against the disgusting protests at the homes of Supreme Court Justices, and even an attempted murder of one of them?  Has she ever condemned Senator Schumer for his inflammatory comments that he made on the steps of the Supreme Court against Justices in telling them that they would, “…pay the price,” for exercising their judicial responsibilities?  Stubson has been silent on these issues.

When I repeated my commissioning oath to become a US Air Force officer, I always remember that I had to swear to, “protect and defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic.” 

As a member of the Air Force officer corps, we knew how to defend our country against foreign enemies.  But a domestic enemy was a subject with which we were never clear about how to defend against them. 

The words of Stubson about what she calls, “Christian Nationalists,” like it is a 4-letter word, contributes to inciting those of the violent left against Christians and Nationalists. 

She sets it forth in such a way that indicates that anyone who would fall into the category of what she considers to be Christian and/or Nationalist should not have a voice and they need to be stopped cold in their tracks by any means possible.

As a so-called lawyer, she should be ashamed.  While she uses her free speech right of the 1st Amendment to the US Constitution to defame a specific group, she wants to remove our free speech rights. 

But I would have to say that is a great thing about the United States.  Susan Stubson has every right to be wrong.

Sincerely,

__________________, Pinedale

Colonel, USAF, Retired

Pretty freaking insulting nonetheless.

While it's not my main point here (I'll get to that) wrapping yourself up in the flag as you were in the service is wearing really think on me.  Last time, I commented on this extensively, and I'll add that and some additional comments down below in the item foot noted here.¹

Anyhow, what did Stubson say, and was it even on Christian Nationalism?

Christian Nationalism is really hard to define.  It's almost more of one of those I know it when I see it type of deals.  We've tried to define it here before.  In its more intellectual areas, it seems to be sort of self defined as National Conservatism, whose manifesto states:

National Conservatism: A Statement Of Principles

A world of independent nations is the only alternative to universalist ideologies seeking to impose a homogenizing, locality-destroying imperium over the entire globe.

JUNE 15, 2022

12:01 AM

THE EDMUND BURKE FOUNDATION

NOTE: The following statement was drafted by Will Chamberlain, Christopher DeMuth, Rod Dreher, Yoram Hazony, Daniel McCarthy, Joshua Mitchell, N.S. Lyons, John O’Sullivan, and R.R. Reno on behalf of the Edmund Burke Foundation. The statement reflects a distinctly Western point of view. However, we look forward to future discourse and collaboration with movements akin to our own in India, Japan, and other non-Western nations. Signatories’ institutional affiliations are included for identification purposes only, and do not imply an endorsement on the part of any institution other than the Edmund Burke Foundation.   

We are citizens of Western nations who have watched with alarm as the traditional beliefs, institutions, and liberties underpinning life in the countries we love have been progressively undermined and overthrown.

We see the tradition of independent, self-governed nations as the foundation for restoring a proper public orientation toward patriotism and courage, honor and loyalty, religion and wisdom, congregation and family, man and woman, the sabbath and the sacred, and reason and justice. We are conservatives because we see such virtues as essential to sustaining our civilization. We see such a restoration as the prerequisite for recovering and maintaining our freedom, security, and prosperity.

We emphasize the idea of the nation because we see a world of independent nations—each pursuing its own national interests and upholding national traditions that are its own—as the only genuine alternative to universalist ideologies now seeking to impose a homogenizing, locality-destroying imperium over the entire globe.

Drawing on this heritage, we therefore affirm the following principles:

1. National Independence. We wish to see a world of independent nations. Each nation capable of self-government should chart its own course in accordance with its own particular constitutional, linguistic, and religious inheritance. Each has a right to maintain its own borders and conduct policies that will benefit its own people. We endorse a policy of rearmament by independent self-governing nations and of defensive alliances whose purpose is to deter imperialist aggression.

2. Rejection of Imperialism and Globalism. We support a system of free cooperation and competition among nation-states, working together through trade treaties, defensive alliances, and other common projects that respect the independence of their members. But we oppose transferring the authority of elected governments to transnational or supranational bodies—a trend that pretends to high moral legitimacy even as it weakens representative government, sows public alienation and distrust, and strengthens the influence of autocratic regimes. Accordingly, we reject imperialism in its various contemporary forms: We condemn the imperialism of China, Russia, and other authoritarian powers. But we also oppose the liberal imperialism of the last generation, which sought to gain power, influence, and wealth by dominating other nations and trying to remake them in its own image.

3. National Government. The independent nation-state is instituted to establish a more perfect union among the diverse communities, parties, and regions of a given nation, to provide for their common defense and justice among them, and to secure the general welfare and the blessings of liberty for this time and for future generations. We believe in a strong but limited state, subject to constitutional restraints and a division of powers. We recommend a drastic reduction in the scope of the administrative state and the policy-making judiciary that displace legislatures representing the full range of a nation’s interests and values. We recommend the federalist principle, which prescribes a delegation of power to the respective states or subdivisions of the nation so as to allow greater variation, experimentation, and freedom. However, in those states or subdivisions in which law and justice have been manifestly corrupted, or in which lawlessness, immorality, and dissolution reign, national government must intervene energetically to restore order.

4. God and Public Religion. No nation can long endure without humility and gratitude before God and fear of his judgment that are found in authentic religious tradition. For millennia, the Bible has been our surest guide, nourishing a fitting orientation toward God, to the political traditions of the nation, to public morals, to the defense of the weak, and to the recognition of things rightly regarded as sacred. The Bible should be read as the first among the sources of a shared Western civilization in schools and universities, and as the rightful inheritance of believers and non-believers alike. Where a Christian majority exists, public life should be rooted in Christianity and its moral vision, which should be honored by the state and other institutions both public and private. At the same time, Jews and other religious minorities are to be protected in the observance of their own traditions, in the free governance of their communal institutions, and in all matters pertaining to the rearing and education of their children. Adult individuals should be protected from religious or ideological coercion in their private lives and in their homes.

5. The Rule of Law. We believe in the rule of law. By this we mean that citizens and foreigners alike, and both the government and the people, must accept and abide by the laws of the nation. In America, this means accepting and living in accordance with the Constitution of 1787, the amendments to it, duly enacted statutory law, and the great common law inheritance. All agree that the repair and improvement of national legal traditions and institutions is at times necessary. But necessary change must take place through the law. This is how we preserve our national traditions and our nation itself. Rioting, looting, and other unacceptable public disorder should be swiftly put to an end.

6. Free Enterprise. We believe that an economy based on private property and free enterprise is best suited to promoting the prosperity of the nation and accords with traditions of individual liberty that are central to the Anglo-American political tradition. We reject the socialist principle, which supposes that the economic activity of the nation can be conducted in accordance with a rational plan dictated by the state. But the free market cannot be absolute. Economic policy must serve the general welfare of the nation. Today, globalized markets allow hostile foreign powers to despoil America and other countries of their manufacturing capacity, weakening them economically and dividing them internally. At the same time, trans-national corporations showing little loyalty to any nation damage public life by censoring political speech, flooding the country with dangerous and addictive substances and pornography, and promoting obsessive, destructive personal habits. A prudent national economic policy should promote free enterprise, but it must also mitigate threats to the national interest, aggressively pursue economic independence from hostile powers, nurture industries crucial for national defense, and restore and upgrade manufacturing capabilities critical to the public welfare. Crony capitalism, the selective promotion of corporate profit-making by organs of state power, should be energetically exposed and opposed.

7. Public Research. At a time when China is rapidly overtaking America and the Western nations in fields crucial for security and defense, a Cold War-type program modeled on DARPA, the “moon-shot,” and SDI is needed to focus large-scale public resources on scientific and technological research with military applications, on restoring and upgrading national manufacturing capacity, and on education in the physical sciences and engineering. On the other hand, we recognize that most universities are at this point partisan and globalist in orientation and vehemently opposed to nationalist and conservative ideas. Such institutions do not deserve taxpayer support unless they rededicate themselves to the national interest. Education policy should serve manifest national needs.

8. Family and Children. We believe the traditional family is the source of society’s virtues and deserves greater support from public policy. The traditional family, built around a lifelong bond between a man and a woman, and on a lifelong bond between parents and children, is the foundation of all other achievements of our civilization. The disintegration of the family, including a marked decline in marriage and childbirth, gravely threatens the wellbeing and sustainability of democratic nations. Among the causes are an unconstrained individualism that regards children as a burden, while encouraging ever more radical forms of sexual license and experimentation as an alternative to the responsibilities of family and congregational life. Economic and cultural conditions that foster stable family and congregational life and child-raising are priorities of the highest order.

9. Immigration. Immigration has made immense contributions to the strength and prosperity of Western nations. But today’s penchant for uncontrolled and unassimilated immigration has become a source of weakness and instability, not strength and dynamism, threatening internal dissension and ultimately dissolution of the political community. We note that Western nations have benefited from both liberal and restrictive immigration policies at various times. We call for much more restrictive policies until these countries summon the wit to establish more balanced, productive, and assimilationist policies. Restrictive policies may sometimes include a moratorium on immigration.

10. Race. We believe that all men are created in the image of God and that public policy should reflect that fact. No person’s worth or loyalties can be judged by the shape of his features, the color of his skin, or the results of a lab test. The history of racialist ideology and oppression and its ongoing consequences require us to emphasize this truth. We condemn the use of state and private institutions to discriminate and divide us against one another on the basis of race. The cultural sympathies encouraged by a decent nationalism offer a sound basis for conciliation and unity among diverse communities. The nationalism we espouse respects, and indeed combines, the unique needs of particular minority communities and the common good of the nation as a whole.

I'd bet dollars to donuts that most of the local populists who conceive of themselves of adhering to Roosevelt's 1912 cry "We stand at Armageddon, and we battle for the Lord" would probably agree with the manifesto and not really put hardly any thought into it.

So what did Stubson say?

We've linked her article in up above.  Here's what she started off with:

CASPER, Wyo. — I first saw it while working the rope line at a monster-truck rally during the 2016 campaign by my husband, Tim, for Wyoming’s lone congressional seat. As Tim and I and our boys made our way down the line, shaking hands and passing out campaign material, a burly man wearing a “God bless America” T-shirt and a cross around his neck said something like, “He’s got my vote if he keeps those [epithet] out of office,” using a racial slur. What followed was an uncomfortable master class in racism and xenophobia as the man decanted the reasons our country is going down the tubes. God bless America.

I now understand the ugliness I heard was part of a current of Christian nationalism fomenting beneath the surface. It had been there all the time. The rope line rant was a mission statement for the disaffected, the overlooked, the frightened. It was also an expression of solidarity with a candidate like Donald Trump who gave a name to a perceived enemy: people who do not look like us or share our beliefs. Immigrants are taking our guns. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. You are not safe in your home. Religious freedom is on the gallows. Vote for me.

I know what she is talking about, as that was 2016 and in the Obama era of politics.  To my enormous surprise, the election of Barack Obama brought out racism in the country at a level that I thought long past.   A lot of the visceral reaction to President Obama was because he was black.

I don't think that has anything to do with Christian Nationalism, however.  That's rather deep old fashion racial prejudice, and frankly it reflects what Ronald Reagan did to the Republican Party, something that Republican Conservatives like the Stubson have still never really acknowledged. Reagan wasn't a racist, but he invited them into the party by courting disaffected Southern Dixiecrat's and Rust Belt Democrats.  Modern populism has a lot of the thin thinking, bad beer consuming, football watching Rust Belt culture that was Democratic in it.  Indeed, it's brought actual Rust Belt Republicans, former Democrats, at least demographically, directly into the party everywhere.  Jeanette Ward is a Rocky Mountain Republican, but a Rust Belt one.

Here's something that I’m going out on a limb on next:

The messages worked. And in large part, it’s my faith community — white, rural and conservative — that got them there. I am a white conservative woman in rural America. Raised Catholic, I found that my faith deepened after I married and joined an evangelical church. As my faith grew, so did Tim’s political career in the Wyoming Legislature. (He served in the House from 2008 to 2017.) I’ve straddled both worlds, faith and politics, my entire adult life. Often there was very little daylight between the two, one informing the other.

If Susan wants to avoid Christian Nationalism, she ought to come back to the Catholic Church.  Evangelical Christianity has always been more racially divided than the Universal (Catholic) Church.  I don't know how many black African pastors Evangelical Church's in Wyoming have, but they are a presence in Catholic ones, along with Vietnamese, Filipino and Hispanic pastors.  People being what they are, individual churches and diocese have never been perfect, but it's always been a hallmark of being a Catholic in Wyoming that you were going to Mass with the businessmen, the ranchers, and the sheepherders. . . all at the same time.

Indeed, well into the 20th Century "main line" Protestant Churches were associated with the Republican Party here, as they were everywhere else, and Democrats stood a good chance of being Catholic.  There were certainly exceptions, and after the Clinton era the Democratic Party just died here.  The point is that the fusion of secular interests with religion has long been a feature of American Protestantism in a way it has not been with Catholicism.

Anyhow.

I'm not going to quote the entire article.  But I'd note where she picks back up.

What’s changed is the rise of Christian nationalism — the belief, as recently described by the Georgetown University professor and author Paul D. Miller, that “America is a ‘Christian nation’ and that the government should keep it that way.” Gone are the days when a lawmaker might be circumspect about using his or her faith as a vehicle to garner votes. It’s been a drastic and destructive departure from the boring, substantive lawmaking to which I was accustomed. Christian nationalists have hijacked both my Republican Party and my faith community by blurring the lines between church and government and in the process rebranding our state’s identity.

Wyoming is a “you do you” state. When it’s a blinding snowstorm, the tractor’s in a ditch and we need a neighbor with a winch, our differences disappear. We don’t care what you look like or who you love. Keep a clean fence line and show up during calving season, and we’re good.

But new sheriffs in town are very much up in their neighbor’s beeswax. Legislation they have proposed seems intent on stripping us of our autonomy and our ability to make decisions for ourselves, all in the name of morality, the definition of which is unclear.

All that is very true.  When the movie Wind River used the line of "This isn't the land of waiting for back up. This is the land of you're on your own.", it was very true.

Stubson next makes this comment.

Rural states are particularly vulnerable to the promise of Christian nationalism. In Wyoming, we are white (more than 92 percent) and love God (71 percent identified as Christian in 2014, according to the Pew Research Center) and Mr. Trump (seven in 10 voters picked him in 2020).

Hmmm, here's where I think Stubson goes off the rails, because I don't think what we're seeing in the populist camp is Christian Nationalism.  Maybe that is, however, because I'm an Apostolic Christian, which looks outward towards something larger than the nation to start with, and which was also historically oppressed by the Protestant culture, and frankly is still held in contempt by it.²

Tell people you are a Catholic, even though we are the original Christian religion, and pretty soon some Protestant will tell you that you are not a Christian, and frankly even doubt a little that you are a real American.  And in Wyoming, you'll be in a religions' minority in a state which, in actuality, is the least observant tin terms of religion in the United States, something that Stubson didn't address in her comments.  This isn't new here, either.  With a high transient population, and a lot of unattached men laborers who work miles from any city, Wyoming has always been only loosely religious.  Being a member of a really adherent faith group probably by default meant that 1) you were a  Catholic, 2) you were Orthodox or 3) you were Mormon, all three of which are overall minorities in the state, although Mormon's are a majority in some communities in the southwest.

Nonetheless, up through the 1970s the "main line" Protestant churches remained the churches of wealth, and this was very much the case up until after World War Two, which was true for much of the United States as well.  Simply being a Catholic in Wyoming limited your economic possibilities until after the war.

Wyoming is overwhelmingly white, although what that means in Wyoming is a little confusing.  I doubt actually that he figure is anywhere near 92% in reality.  In part, that's because long time Hispanic (Catholic again) communities in Wyoming probably self identify as white, even though they certainly aren't WASPs  Most of the local politicians who cite religion are undoubtedly Protestants, although one is a California Hispanic.  The state has a large Native American population that is probably undercounted in statistics such as this.  Half of the state's population at any one time, at least, is transient and from somewhere else.  I'd guess that probably 70% of most of the state is "white", but no more than that.  Probably less.

My own place of work is probably a good example.  No matter how people might identify, ethnic minorities are strongly represented.

I do agree with what she next states.

The result is bad church and bad law. “God, guns and Trump” is an omnipresent bumper sticker here, the new trinity. The evangelical church has proved to be a supplicating audience for the Christian nationalist roadshow. Indeed, it is unclear to me many Sundays whether we are hearing a sermon or a stump speech.

As an Apostolic Christian, I find the phrase "God, guns and Trump" absolutely abhorrent.  I'd be less offended by "guns and Trump", even though I don't think the Second Amendment and support for Trump in an existential sense are linked, but to link in God strikes me as approaching blasphemy, and it is emblematic of a major problem.

Skipping way ahead:

Yet fear (and loathing for Ms. Cheney, who voted to impeach Mr. Trump and dared to call him “unfit for office”) led to a record voter turnout in the August primary. The Trumpist candidate, Harriet Hageman, trounced Ms. Cheney. Almost half of the Wyoming House members were new. At least one-third of them align with the Freedom Caucus, a noisy group unafraid to manipulate Scripture for political gain under a banner of preserving a godly nation.

The impact of this new breed of lawmakers has been swift. Wyomingites got a very real preview this past legislative session of the hazards of one-size-fits-all nationalized policies that ignore the nuances of our state. ‌Last year, maternity wards closed in two sparsely populated communities, further expanding our maternity desert. Yet in debating a bill to provide some relief to new moms by extending Medicaid’s postpartum coverage, a freshman member of the State House, Jeanette Ward, invoked a brutally narrow view of the Bible. “Cain commented to God, ‘Am I my brother’s keeper?’” she said. “The obvious answer is no. No, I am not my brother’s keeper. But just don’t kill him.”

This confusing ‌mash-up‌ of Scripture (Ms. Ward got it wrong: The answer is yes, I am my brother’s keeper) is emblematic of a Christian nationalist who weaponizes God’s word to promote the agenda du jour. We should expect candidates who identify as followers of Christ to model some concern for other people.

Okay, sound familiar? 

If you read the entries here, it should, as I made this same observation at the time.

Stubson notes:

I am adrift in this unnamed sea, untethered from both my faith community and my political party as I try to reconcile evangelicals’ repeated endorsements of candidates who thumb their noses at the least of us. Christians are called to serve God, not a political party, to put our faith in a higher power, not in human beings. We’re taught not to bow to false idols. Yet idolatry is increasingly prominent and our foundational principles — humility, kindness and compassion — in short supply.

The answer here is obvious.

Susan, come home to the Church.

“It was a great day!” one of our pastors proclaimed on social media last year when Mr. Trump came to town to campaign against Ms. Cheney. Though many agreed with him, some of his pastoral colleagues grieved, traumatized by the hard right turn in their congregations.

Yup. and again. . . .  

She concluded.

This is the state I cannot quit. I rely on those gritty and courageous leaders who hold tight to our rural values. They are the Davids in the fight against the Philistines. They are our brother’s keeper.

So I'll go from here.

I don't think what we're seeing in Wyoming is actually Christian Nationalism.  Like it, hate it, or fear it, it's actually too intellectually deep for what Stubson is observing.

What she's actually observing is something that's been in the American culture for a long time. The Midwestern lower middle class WASPs and Southern WASP cultures, but just imported here. It's always been  here, but the state's insistence on never taking a second look at its economy has reinforced it.

Which is not to dismiss it.

The interesting thing about it is that the rage it is expressing, and it is rage, is in reaction to the same thing that Christian Nationalism is reacting to, which is the forced radical liberalization of the culture. A development decade in the making, but which finally really burst out in the open with Obergefell.  Ironically this comes out of the very same WASP culture, and its' interesting to note that this trend exists most strongly in the world where 1) the Reformation succeeded, or 2) the secular Reformation of the ideals of the French Revolution succeeded.

Their ultimate problem, at the end of the day, was the rejection of a greater existential reality.  Catholicism and Orthodoxy, like the more conservative branches of Judaism, and Islam, hold that there's something greater than us and that we in turn fit within that greater reality's organization.  We may be the greatest of the creatures, but we're still a creature, and as a creature, have what is set within us. We don't get to define it.

That's been discussed here in many threads, and it explains in the case of the Apostolic Religions and Judaism the strong attachment to science.  The "reformed" branches of Christianity, and for that matter the more liberal reformed branches of Judaism, lack those guide rails as they took them down.  When Luther started that process, he didn't mean to dismantle them as to Faith, but it happened pretty quickly, at first with any number of reformers declaring that they knew what the Faith was and rejecting what came before.

It was inevitable that ultimately that process would be self consuming.  The Protestant churches started dismantling themselves some time ago, most notably with the sticky topics of sex, which they made concessions on in some instances nearly immediately.  Luther through he'd discovered the Church was wrong on some things regarding the Bible and almost immediately thereafter discovered women, and that his vows could be booted on that topic, for instance.

Starting at some point, perhaps as early ago as the beginning of the prior century, the WASP culture in the US began to fatigue.  It was always the wealthiest section of the population.  Having eons earlier rejected Rome, it ultimately began to reject Canterbury, and anything else inconvenient. The wealthier its members are, the more likely this is true.  At the lower ends, it simply weakened things to where today, for many Protestants, the clear prohibitions on sex outside of marriage, remarriage and the like just don't exist. There are Protestant church goes who have been married multiple times, or who attend weekly with their "partners" who are not married at all.

That sort of faith is emblematic, in some ways, of where we are.  It's all internal, just like my definition of myself.  I'm okay as I'm not a sinner as I say so.  And if some want to say that they're girls if they're boys, well who is to stop them?

A recent editorial on something else I read stated, and here I agree with it, that at some point you know that things are just flat out wrong, and that's where we are now.  The remaining Protestant faithful know that something is wrong and are strongly reacting.  Those in the WASP rejection camp know it too and keep grasping, just like an alcoholic who hasn't had enough, for anything consumable.  That's' why we simultaneously see an explosion of ridiculous made up gender categories, with new labels weekly, at the same time we see both Christian Nationalism and populist who cite to their religion.

That's also why people like Stubson are baffled.  Many of those, indeed a very large number of  them, on the populist right will cite religion while at the same time seemingly not grasping it.  The religion of the populist right is a right wing conservative variant of the American Civil Religion. That explains why the same people can worship a political leader who is a serial polygamist or have local leaders who have been accused of icky behavior.  It explains why, as Stubson has noted, that some of them can quote sections of the Bible, but also hold the poor and needy in disregard.

But that's not actually Christian Nationalism.  That's populist right wing American politics of the Southern variety. Southern populism would be a better name for it.  And that it had arrived was clear with the campaign of Foster Freiss.

That doesn't say anything for or against Christian Nationalism.  That'll have to wait for another thread.  But we should make no mistake. When Ronald Reagan adopted the Southern Strategy, it helped lead to this point.  This is what was going to occur, at least to some extent.  Of course, it took the urban WASPs getting really wealthy first, at which point we learn that when a large section of the population becomes well off in real terms, its mind doesn't turn to higher thoughts, but the lowest of them.

Footnotes:

1. We earlier stated:

First, let me note that I looked this individual up, and he's a retired Colonel in the USAF.  A report on his career provides:

He is still fond of many of his UW instructors. After graduation, Steve received commission as a second lieutenant in the Air Force. He served as a contracting officer through his 26-year career, had 13 moves throughout the U.S. and spent about a third of his assignments in Europe. He also earned his master’s from the Air Force Institute of Technology.

A contracting officer for 26 years.

He ain't Audie Murphy.

Audie Murphy, then a lieutenant, wearing his awards.  All of these, it might be noted, are real combat awards.

They also serve who sit and work on contracts, but that's not exactly facing down the Red Coats at Bunker Hill, now is it?  Nor is it manning a cross road in the Ardennes, firiing your M1 Garand at the Red Chinese in Korea, or going on patrol in Vietnam.

It's service, but it points out something about the U.S. military that most people don't really like to consider, that being that the era when most servicemen filled a role like that portrayed in The Sands of Iwo Jima was so long ago that, well, it wasn't even the case in the era depicted by The Sands of Iwo Jima.

I might as well point it out here.  Do I think my six years of being an artilleryman during the Cold War are more significant and valuable service than 27 years of being an Air Force contracts officer?

Well. . . quite frankly I very well might.

It was, in a real sense, more military.

So, do I still feel that way.

Yep, more than ever.

What does the Air Force say about this position:

SECURING WHAT WE NEED

In order for our Airmen to complete their missions successfully, they need dependable, high-quality equipment at the right place and the right time. Responsible for securing and skillfully negotiating the sale of these necessities, Contracting Officers help ensure command units are well stocked with everything they need. Whether it’s planning, evaluating or awarding, these experts manage contracts for commodities, services and construction to properly oversee the contracting process every step of the way.

And:

QUALIFICATIONS SUMMARY

• MINIMUM EDUCATION

  • Bachelor’s degree in business, economics, math or engineering
  • Degree must include a minimum of 24 semester credit hours of study in any of the following: accounting, business, law, contracts, purchasing economics, industrial management, marketing, quantitative method and organization and management

• QUALIFICATIONS

  • Knowledge of contracting process fundamentals, federal acquisition and contracting directives and publications, budgeting and funding procedures and contract pricing
  • Completion of the Mission Ready Contracting Officer course
  • Completion of Officer Training School (OTS), Air Force Academy (AFA) or Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps (AFROTC)
  • Must be between the ages of 18 and 39

And at this point, I'll probably make everyone mad.

One of the things about the modern military has been the massive growth of non combat jobs.  Even during the Second World War, most American servicemen didn't fight, weren't going to fight, and were not at risk of dying in combat whatsoever.

Any conscripted serviceman of any kinds deserves a measure of our respect simply for doing something they didn't want to do, because their country asked them to.  That doesn't make them a hero, however.  And opting for a military career, as a career, has always been a solid career decision that a lot of people have made over the years, but that's what it is, taking it no further than that.  Most service jobs in the U.S. Military frankly aren't all that risky, and they haven't been since some point prior to World War Two.  Back in the day when Doonsbury was still funny, there was a classic instance of the cartoon when an outraged Vietnam vet calls into to complain about somebody being hosted on the radio, and it turns out they both spent the war in their domains smoking weed and listening to Jimi Hendrix.  An exaggeration, but only so much.

Combat vets, and veterans who have served in combat arms are, in my mind, a different deal.  Searching out contract details in an air-conditioned office is one thing, getting shelled or potentially getting shelled is quite another.  If your job could just as easily be done by a civilian, you ought to really rethink claiming special status.

2. The line that Anti Catholisim is the last acceptalbe prejudice in the United States is more than a little true.  It's not only accepted, but it's almost mandatory in some quarter, both from the right and the left.

Related Threads:

Confusing politics with religion.

Lex Anteinternet: "How can you represent. . . "

Lex Anteinternet: "How can you represent. . . ": 

"How can you represent. . . "

Elk Mountain.

Every lawyer has been asked that question at some point.  Usually it's "how can you represent somebody you know is guilty?"

Usually, amongst lawyers, it's regarded as kind of an eye rolling "oh how naive" type of question.  For lawyers who have a philosophical or introspective bent, and I'd submit that's a distance minority, they may have an answer that's based on, basically, defending a system that defends us all.  Maybe they have something even more sophisticated, such as something along the lines of St. Thomas More's statement in A Man For All Seasons:

William Roper : So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!

Sir Thomas More : Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?

William Roper : Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!

Sir Thomas More : Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!

That's about the best answer that there may be, and frankly the only one that applies to civil litigation.  We can console ourselves that in representing the interests of the potentially liable, we protect the interest of everyone.

But what about plaintiff's lawyers?

Frankly, the excuse is wearing thin.  

I.e., I don't believe it for a second.  It's all about cash.

And this is a real problem.

The question is what to do about it.

Well, frankly, the average person can't do much.  But you don't really have to accept it, either.

Shunning has a bad name in our culture.  Indeed, one English language European source states:

More specifically, shunning or ostracising is a form of abuse. It is discrimination and silent bullying. Unfortunately, often people who have been shunned also face other forms of abuse, ranging from death threats and physical assaults to murder.

And there's a lot of truth to that.

At the same time, it was and is something that is often practiced to varying degrees in religious communities.  Indeed, up until the revision of the Code of Canon Law in 1983, Catholic excommunications were of two types, vitandus and toleratus, with vitandus requiring the Faithful to cease all normal connections with the excommunicated.  It was very rare, but it could happen. Since 1983 that distinction does not exist.  Some Amish, however, still have such a practice, and they are not alone.

Realizing this is extreme, I also realize, as I've seen pointed out twice, that land locking rich magnates cannot do it without local help. They always hire somebody, I've heard them referred to as "goons" to be their enforcer, and when they need legal help, they hire a Wyoming licensed attorney.  Indeed, in this instance, remarkably, the plaintiff did not use a Denver attorney, which I thought they likely would have. 

And this has always been the case.  Wyoming Stock Growers Association stock detectives were sometimes enforcers back in the late 19th Century, and they were hired men.  In the trial of the Invaders, a local Cheyenne attorney was used, but then again, that was a criminal case, which I do feel differently about.

Elk Mountain is basically mid-way, and out of the way, between Laramie, Rawlins and Saratoga.  People working for Iron Bar Holdings have to go to one of those places for goods and services.  There's really no reason the excluded locals need to sell them anything.  Keep people off. . .drive to Colorado for services.

And on legal services?  I don't know the lawyers involved, so I'm unlikely to every run into them. But I'm not buying them lunch as we often do as a courtesy while on the road, and if I were a local rancher, and keep in mind that outfits like Iron Bar Holdings don't help local ranchers keep on keeping on, I'd tell that person, if they stopped in to ask to go fishing or hunting, to pound sand.

If this sounds extreme, and it actually is, this is what happened with some of the law firms representing Donald Trump in his effort to steal the election.  They backed out after partners in their firms basically, it seems, told Trump's lawyers to chose Trump or the firm.

And there are many other examples.  Lawyers bear no social costs at all for whom they represent in civil suits.  People who regard abortion as murder will sit right down with lawyers representing abortionists, people seeking a radical social change will hire lawyers to advance the change, and the lawyers fellows feel no pressure as a result of that at all.

Maybe they should.

Or is that view fundamentally wrong?

Lex Anteinternet: Upon reaching 60

Lex Anteinternet: Upon reaching 60: 

Upon reaching 60

That's how old I am today.

When I was young.  I was about three when this photos was taken, maybe two.  My father was 36 or 37.

Americans like to debate at what age you are "old", with that benchmark, and the one for middle age, moving over the years to some extent.  Some go so far as to claim that the term doesn't mean anything. 

It does, as you really do become older and then old, at some point.

The United Nations categorizes "older" as commencing at age 60, something, given their mission, that would encompass the totality of the human race.  Some polling you'll see suggests that Americans regard it actually starting at 59 or 57.  Pew, the respected polling and data institution, noted the following:

These generation gaps in perception also extend to the most basic question of all about old age: When does it begin? Survey respondents ages 18 to 29 believe that the average person becomes old at age 60. Middle-aged respondents put the threshold closer to 70, and respondents ages 65 and above say that the average person does not become old until turning 74.

Interesting.

It is not like flipping a switch, and it doesn't really happen to all people at the exact same time.  I'm often reminded of this when I observe people I've known for many years.  Men in particular, I used to think, aged at a much different rate than women.  I knew a few of my contemporaries who were getting pretty old by the time they were in their 30s, and I know a few men in their 70s who are in fantastic shape and appear much younger than they really are.  I recall thinking, back when I was in my late 20s, that my father was getting older, but wasn't old, right up until the time he died at age 62.

Having said that, I’m often now shocked, I hate to admit, by the appearance of women my own age, again that I knew when they were young.  It's not like I know every girl I went to high school with, but I know a few of them, and some of them have held up much better than others.  In that category, some of my close relatives have really held up well.

Up until recently, I could say that I've held up well, but this past year has been really rough health wise. First there was colon surgery in October, followed by a prolonged medical addressing of a thyroid nodule which was feared, at first, to be aggressive cancer. Working that out is still ongoing, but that now appears much less likely, meaning that only half the thyroid will need to be removed.  

All of that has reminded me of Jesus' address to Peter:

Amen, amen, I say to you, when you were younger, you used to dress yourself and go where you wanted; but when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.

John, Chapter 21.

Peter, by the way, was between age 64 and 68 when he was martyred.  St. Paul was over 60, it's worth noting, when he met the same fate.

It's been rough in other ways as well.  One thing is that, in spite of what people like to claim, your fate is really fixed by age 60.  You aren't going to leave your job as an accountant and become an Army paratrooper.¹ If you are a paratrooper, you're going to retire now, as 60 is the military's retirement cutoff age.  If you've spent decades in the Army, and retire at 60 (most servicemen retire before that), you aren't going on, probably, to a career you don't have any strong connection with.

In my case, as I started to type out here the other day and then did not, as it didn't read the way I really wanted it to, I can now look back on a long career, over 30 years, and largely regard it as a failure, even though almost everyone I know would regard it as a success.  I won't get over that.  I'd always hoped to make the judiciary, but I'm not going to, and there's no longer even any point in trying.  I'm reminded of this failure every time I appear in front of one of the new judges and see how incredibly young they now are, and also when I listen to suggestions that the retirement age for judges be raised up to the absurdly high 75.

At age 60, if I were to go to work for the state (which I'm also not going to), I couldn't really ever make the "Rule of 85" for retirement.  As a lifelong private practice attorney, I'm now actually at the age where most lawyers look at their career, and their income, and decide they can't retire, some retreating into their office personality as the last version of themselves and nothing else.  I'm not going to become a member of the legislature, something probably most young lawyers toy with the idea of.  I'm not going to become a game warden, something I pondered when young.²  I'm way past the point where most similar Federal occupations are age restricted, and for good reason.

This is, work wise, pretty much it.

I said to myself, this is the business we've chosen; I didn't ask who gave the order, because it had nothing to do with business!

Hyman Roth, to Michael Corleone, in The Godfather, Part II ,

I'm also never going to own my own ranch, which was a decades long career goal.  I have acquired a fair number of cattle, but my operation is always going to be ancillary to my in laws at this point.  When I was first married my wife and I tried to find our own place, with she being much less optimistic about it than I. There were times, when the land cost less, that we could almost make, almost, a small place. We never quite did, and now, we're not going to.

Indeed, thinking back to St. Peter, I'm now at the age of "you can't", with some of the "can'ts" being medical.  I could when I was younger, but now I can't, or shouldn't.  Others are familial.  "You can't" is something I hear a lot, pertaining to a lot of things, ranging from what we might broadly call home economics, in the true economic sense, to short term and long term plans, to even acquisitions that to most people wouldn't be much, but in my circumstances, in the views of others, are.  Some are professional, as ironically it's really at some point in your 50s or very early 60s where you are by default fully professionally engaged, with that taking precedence over everything else, including time for anything else.

One of the most frustrating things about reaching this age, however, is seeing that you probably will never see how some things turn out, and you don't seem to have the ability to influence them.  I'm not, in this instance, referring to something like the Hyman Roth character again, in which he hopes to see the results of his criminal enterprise flourish but fears he won't live long enough to.  Indeed, I find myself curiously detached from concerns of this type that some people have.  I've noticed, for instance, the deep concern some aging lawyers have about their "legacy" in the law, which often translates to being remembered as a lawyer or their firm's carrying on.  I don't have those concerns, and indeed, taking the long view of things, I think it's really vanity to suppose that either of those wishes might be realized by anyone.

No, what I mean is that by this age there are those you know very closely, and you have reason to fear for their own long term fate, but you really don't have much you can do about it.  People who seem to be stuck in place, for instance, seem beyond the helping hand, and more than that, they don't really want, it seems, to be offered a hand.  People who have walked up to the church door but who won't go in as it means giving up grudges, burdens or hatreds, can't be coaxed in, even it means their soul is imperiled.  It recalls the last final lines of A River Runs Through It. .

I remember the last sermon I ever heard my father give, not long before his own death:

Each one of us here today will, at one time in our lives, look upon a loved one in need and ask the same question: We are willing Lord, but what, if anything, is needed? For it is true that we can seldom help those closest to us. Either we don’t know what part of ourselves to give, or more often than not, that part we have to give… is not wanted. And so it is those we live with and should know who elude us… But we can still love them… We can love—completely—even without complete understanding….

I guess that's about right. 

Footnotes:

1.  Or, I might note, a Ukrainian Legionnaire.  You are too old to join.

Interestingly, I recently saw an article by a well known, I guess, newspaper reporter who attempted to join the U.S. Army in his upper 40s.  He apparently didn't know that you are well past the eligible age of enlistment at that point.  He was arguing that there should be some sort of special unit made for people like himself, or like he imagined himself, well-educated individuals in their upper 40s.  Why should there be if you can recruit people in their 20s?

2. Wyoming Game Wardens were once required to retire at age 55, but a lawsuit some decades ago overturned that. It, in turn, was later overruled, but by that time the state had changed the system. Since that time, it's set it again statutorily, with the age now being 65 by law.  There aren't, therefore, any 67-year-old game wardens.

Statutorily, the current law provides:

9-3-607. Age of retirement.

(a) Any employee with six (6) or more years of service to his credit is eligible to receive a retirement allowance under this article when he attains age fifty (50).

(b) Effective July 1, 1998, any employee retiring after July 1, 1998, with twenty-five (25) or more years of service may elect to retire and receive a benefit upon attaining age fifty (50) as described in W.S. 9-3-610.

(c) Repealed by Laws 1993, ch. 120, §§ 1, 2.

(d) Any employee in service who has attained age sixty-five (65), shall be retired not later than the last day of the calendar month in which his 65th birthday occurs. 

Age limitations of this type are tied to physical fitness.  But what about mental fitness?  As mentioned here before, Gen. Marshall forcibly retired most serving U.S. Army generals, or at least sidelined them, who were over 50 years of age during World War Two, and that had to do with their thinking.  We now allow judges to remain on the bench until they are 70.  Would 60 make more sense?  And can the same argument be made for lawyers, who are officers of the court?

Lex Anteinternet: Gerontocracy. A Rant.

Lex Anteinternet: Gerontocracy. A Rant.: 

Gerontocracy. A Rant.

I recently posted this on our aviation blog:

The Aerodrome: When you are keeping the original barstormers flying.: 

When you are keeping the original barstormers flying.

I've posted about this elsewhere, when I was really miffed about it, but Wyoming's Cynthia Lummis has introduced a bill in the Senate to raise mandatory airline pilot retirement ages up to age 67.

Lummis is 68.

Let's note the trend here.  Lummis is 68.  Wyoming's John Barasso is 70.  Wyoming's Congressman Harriet Hageman, at age 60, could nearly be regarded as youthful.

Joe Biden is 80. Donald Trump is 77.  Chuck Schumer is 72.  Mitch McConnell is 81.

This is, quite frankly, absurd.

The United States is, without a doubt, a gerontocracy.

Okay, what's that have to do with airlines?

We repeatedly here there's a pilot shortage.  What is obviously necessary to, in regard to the shortage, is to recruit younger pilots into the field. That requires opportunity and a decent wage.

Vesting the good paying jobs in the elderly is not the way to achieve that.  Indeed, depressing the mandatory retirement age would be.

I suspect this bill will not pass, but the problem it notes is frankly severe.

Why is nothing getting done in this country?  And why are young people so disgruntled by work that old people complain about how disgruntled they are.

In large measure, this country and society is completely dominated by the elderly.

Now, this smacks of ageism, and it is. But there does come a time when one generation needs to back off and hand the reins to another.  The Baby Boomer generation is past that time, and it refused to yield.

It's absolutely insane that the two top contenders for the highest elected office in the nation is between two ancient men.  Seriously?  Can people whose world views were formed in the 60s really be expected to lead on any current crisis?  We've never expected such old people to rule in times of trouble before.

Franklin Roosevelt, who was regarded as old going into his fourth and fatally final term, was 63 years old when he died.

Woodrow Wilson, who lead the country through the Great War, was 67 when he died in 1924.  He outlived his great rival, Theodore Roosevelt, by several years.  TR died when he was 60, just as he'd always expected to.

Abraham Lincoln was 56 years old, serving in his second term, when he was assassinated.  I note that because in the greatest crisis in the country's history, we had a President in his 50s. . . not his 70s or 80s.

And its not just the Oval Office.  As noted above, the levers of Congress' machinery are held by the ancient, in many instances.  Wyoming just turned its Congressional seat over to a "freshman" who is now a freshman at age 60.

Lawyers at age 60, as she is, ought to be looking towards how things are going to be handled in the next decade as they inevitably face decline.  That doesn't mean taking up a leadereship role in teh country.

And people aren't really choosing these antiquarian figures. They have no choice.  It's much like this meme from the Simpson's that is so well know, it's traveled the globe:

And you do, as they have the money, even if they ironically don't have the members.

We repeatedly hear that Wyoming is the most "Red State" (meaning Communist, of course, oh wait ... not that means the most conservative as red is the color of socialism. . . oh wait, that's not right, blue is the international color of the far right so that means. . . oh never mind).  Even here, however, party registration breaks out in this fashion:

Sure, that means that "independents" are about 9% of the figure for Republicans, but we all know that at least a quarter of the GOP is made up of registrants who have gone there due to the Simpsonian monster.  If you want a voice, you have to vote in the GOP primary.  

And that means you have to accept that at the end of the day, the people you are voting in, with the odd exception of Chuck Gray, who is another topic, are going to be old.

And it's not just in politics.  Business is often, but not exclusively, dominated by the old.  In something, I personally follow, although not everyone does, the leadership of the Catholic Church, the Bishops, is elderly and heavily influenced by Priests who came of age in a liberal era, and therefore are in conflict with younger more conservative ones.

The law is dominated by the elderly as well.  Look at any Supreme Court, for the most part. Wyoming just took a failed run at raising the judicial retirement age up from the current age 70, which is pretty old.  It failed, but it had the backing of the Chief Justice of the state.  And this is the second time this has been tried in recent years.

For a variety of reason, for most of American history, people tended to step into their work in a major way in their 20s.  They were often very fully established by their 30s.  Doing that now is difficult in the extreme, thanks to people over 60.

People look back on certain generations that never had a voice. "Lost Generations".  Nearly everyone in the shadow of the Baby Boom Generation fits into that category to some extent, some more than others.

Be that as it may, we're not going to solve long term budget problems, energy problems, border problems, and the like, looking to people who look out and see the world through 1973 lenses.

Lex Anteinternet: The 2024 Election, Part III. Spring shoots

Lex Anteinternet: The 2024 Election, Part III. Spring shoots: May 1, 2023

Perhaps its assuming too much, but it is my assumption that Secretary of State Chuck Gray views his office as a springboard to the Governorship and that he otherwise really isn't interested that much in the workaday role of the SoS Office. Certainly, he's doing a lot to keep his name in the news, or it is i the news anyhow.

Gray spoke at the University of Wyoming in front of a newly organized conservative student organization.  I suppose that makes sense, but what really struck me was the prayer offered by Gabe Saint, a figure in the organization, prior to Gray speaking.  According to the Tribune, it went:

Lord, please be with Chuck tonight. He has been a blessing to Wyoming and fights fervently for righteous change and to bring back American values,  Be with him while he is in office. Give him grace and wisdom. Lord, we ask that you deliver him from his enemies, because he has many. We ask that you protect him as he takes on the Goliath that is the enemy in the form of wokeness.

I'm not sure what to make of that at all.

This is another one of those areas where I find myself between two poles, between extremes on both ends, and wishing it was 1923, and I was riding out to check my sheep on a mule.

On one hand, I do feel that the American left is getting, leftier, if that's a word.  So perhaps doing on this on May 1 makes sense.

Not every proposition of the American left is nuts by any means, and depending upon what thread a person reads here, they might conclude from time to time that I'm a leftist, which I'm not.  But in the social arena, the left has gone completely off the rails and it's absolutely frightening.  That's what the right is referring to when it uses the term "woke".

On the other hand, the populist right has gone full authoritarian scary.

There are days anymore where it feels like Spain in 1935, hoping it doesn't become Spain in 1936.

Where was that mule. . . 

Anyhow, one of the things about the populist right and the far left is that they both live in a fantasy land.  The far left lives in one in which science, religion and reality don't matter. We can all be our own personal gods and everyone has to acknowledge that.  If Robert Reich came out tomorrow demanding that people who think they are polar bears be regarded as polar bears, it wouldn't surprise me a bit.  The far right, on the other hand, lives in a world where Donald Trump is some sort of heroic founding father saint and the election was stolen from him.

Most Americans don't like fighting much, as most people don't.  That's what the "advancements" in social issues actually means, on the left.  It isn't, quite frankly, that people have bought off on a LBGTQ+ agenda, they just want to be left the crap alone.  Of course, living in a society in which things are left alone, if they are corrosive, corrodes.  But that's what that really means, more than anything else.  The thing the right misses is that most Americans are not on the far right.  They're more or less in the middle, and right now I think they're moving to the left in reaction to the Republican Party looking increasingly like it's like the España franquista to be the national model.

Part of that reaction is the baffling adoption of lies by the populist far right. The rank and file really believe them, and by doing so fail to realize that they're a minority and becoming more of one.  That's giving us this goofball 2024 election in which it is increasingly likely that a 177 Donald Trump will be accusing a 180 year old Joe Biden of being old. They're both old.

There's plenty to fault both of them for.  Biden hasn't adhered to his expressed Catholic values, which should disturb voters, as a man who won'd adhere to his deepest values at least raises questions.  But he has done surprisingly well with the situation he was left with, and he isn't Donald Trump, which is why he's likely to win that contest.

Trump is either suffering from some sort of mental issue or a liar, or both, but he's absolutely scary in his contempt for democracy.

Which leads us to the prayer.

Chuck Gray is a Catholic, and the Catholic faith doesn't cut much slack for serious lies.  

Catholics also tend to hold a fairly non compromising view of the world in certain ways, perhaps best summed up in this letter from the Second Century.

Christians are indistinguishable from other men either by nationality, language or customs. They do not inhabit separate cities of their own, or speak a strange dialect, or follow some outlandish way of life. Their teaching is not based upon reveries inspired by the curiosity of men. Unlike some other people, they champion no purely human doctrine. With regard to dress, food and manner of life in general, they follow the customs of whatever city they happen to be living in, whether it is Greek or foreign. 

And yet there is something extraordinary about their lives. They live in their own countries as though they were only passing through. They play their full role as citizens, but labor under all the disabilities of aliens. Any country can be their homeland, but for them their homeland, wherever it may be, is a foreign country. Like others, they marry and have children, but they do not expose them. They share their meals, but not their wives.  

They live in the flesh, but they are not governed by the desires of the flesh. They pass their days upon earth, but they are citizens of heaven. Obedient to the laws, they yet live on a level that transcends the law. Christians love all men, but all men persecute them. Condemned because they are not understood, they are put to death, but raised to life again. They live in poverty, but enrich many; they are totally destitute, but possess an abundance of everything. They suffer dishonor, but that is their glory. They are defamed, but vindicated. A blessing is their answer to abuse, deference their response to insult. For the good they do they receive the punishment of malefactors, but even then they, rejoice, as though receiving the gift of life. They are attacked by the Jews as aliens, they are persecuted by the Greeks, yet no one can explain the reason for this hatred. 

To speak in general terms, we may say that the Christian is to the world what the soul is to the body. As the soul is present in every part of the body, while remaining distinct from it, so Christians are found in all the cities of the world, but cannot be identified with the world. As the visible body contains the invisible soul, so Christians are seen living in the world, but their religious life remains unseen. The body hates the soul and wars against it, not because of any injury the soul has done it, but because of the restriction the soul places on its pleasures. Similarly, the world hates the Christians, not because they have done it any wrong, but because they are opposed to its enjoyments. 

Christians love those who hate them just as the soul loves the body and all its members despite the body's hatred. It is by the soul, enclosed within the body, that the body is held together, and similarly, it is by the Christians, detained in the world as in a prison, that the world is held together. The soul, though immortal, has a mortal dwelling place; and Christians also live for a time amidst perishable things, while awaiting the freedom from change and decay that will be theirs in heaven. As the soul benefits from the deprivation of food and drink, so Christians flourish under persecution. Such is the ChristianÂÂ’s lofty and divinely appointed function, from which he is not permitted to excuse himself.

 I don't know what faith Saint is, but his prayer strikes me as a sort of old time, classic, Evangelical one.  It actually reminds me a bit, and this isn't the only recent thing that's reminded me of it, of Theodore Roosevelt's 1918 speech in which he stated:

We fight in honorable fashion for the good of mankind; fearless of the future; unheeding of our individual fates; with unflinching hearts and undimmed eyes; we stand at Armageddon and we battle for the Lord.

Roosevelt stated that as he took his followers right into oblivion with the Progressive Party.

I'm not saying Gray and Roosevelt are co-political.  Roosevelt was a liberal Republican who became a radical one.  Gray is a far right populist.  I am saying that their branch of the GOP is probably taking it into political oblivious, however.

Anyhow, I'm not one to criticize a prayer as a rule, and I won't do so here.  People should pray for Chuck Gray, and for Governor Gordon.  But as part of that, for their souls and the courage to choose the righteous, honest path over the politically expedient.  Gray got his seat by flaming the flames of a fib, and that was expedient.  If he believes it, he's in serious need of reassessment.  If he doesn't, he should repent.

And as for ambition, and he's clearly ambitions, he should recall what was stated in Papal Coronation ceremonies between 1409 and 1963.

Sic transist gloria mundi.