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Post by artraveler on Jul 28, 2020 19:59:46 GMT -8
I would say that Montaigne is the person with whom I most closely agree on thoughts of faith, society and governance. Eric Hoffer, when he was a tramp worker during the 30s relates story of going into a bookstore in Placerville CA and buying the longest book he could find which was essays of Montaigne. As it happened he was snowed in for several weeks and had nothing to do but read. By the time winter broke he could quote Montaigne by memory. A careful reading of the True Believer reveals that source work. John Adams was also a big fan and his copy of essays is dog eared, underlined, glossed with comments and almost unreadable. Adams carries on a long conversation with Montaigne over many issues. However, and this is rare for Adams, he does not refer to the author as either a fool or an ass. Adams books in the library of congress are all worked over with comments, dog ears, underling's and gloss. It is a shame that the average American does not have the opportunity to read them.
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Post by timothylane on Jul 28, 2020 21:03:45 GMT -8
I've heard of Montaigne, but never read any of his essays. I checked hastily on wikipedia and (aside from being surprised that he was late 16th century rather than the Louis XIV era) I found that they had a long set of quotes in wikiquotes as well as discussions of his essays in the wikipedia article. I may have to look into them sometime soon.
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Post by kungfuzu on Sept 9, 2020 13:35:13 GMT -8
Slovakia, the Eastern half of what used to be Czechoslovakia, has basically outlawed Islam in the country. No mosquesI like what one politician said, "Islamization begins with (the) kebab." Though few will admit this, it is true that food is a fundamental basis of culture.
One less internal battle to fight.
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Post by Brad Nelson on Sept 10, 2020 7:03:01 GMT -8
That is a smart move by the Slavs.
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Post by kungfuzu on Sept 10, 2020 14:42:07 GMT -8
A wonderful article about Christianity in the West and what needs to be done to stop its decline. Hint: Follow the scriptures
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Post by Brad Nelson on Sept 10, 2020 20:59:09 GMT -8
This is why a sincere study of Judaism is central to not being a typical Christian. You have to start at the roots.
Great article by Bachman. He had me at “estrogen-soaked La La Land.”
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Post by Brad Nelson on Sept 11, 2020 7:11:09 GMT -8
I get the general idea (we see this clearly in the Anglican Church hierarchy….probably the Catholic one as well) that people don’t actually believe in God, Jesus, or Adonai.
I suspect that in a world full of evil, it’s always been a challenge to believe in a good God. This is likely much more difficult because of the indoctrinated mythology of Darwinism.
But even Darwinism, as weak as it is in explaining life, has no explanation for the origin of life, let alone the entire universe. So we can’t blame Darwin for everything.
I think what we can safely say is that religion has morphed from a project of conquering human nature to one that is little more than a therapeutic mental massage. It’s now about feeling better about yourself and using God as a means for material advancement rather than seeing God as the instrument of Goodness and Justice, comparing and contrasting our own conduct with the ideal.
This is what all this “Everyone goes to heaven” is about. We can’t possibly know one way or another for it is not our judgment to make. But the instinct to make everyone feel good about themselves no matter what evil they have done is a core aspect of the Therapeutic Gospel.
Dennis Prager had an amusing observation the other day on his Happiness Hour. He was talking about how the task is to conquer aspects of human nature, including being grateful. He noted that being grateful does not come easy, for why else do you have to remind a child a thousand times (it never ends) to say “thank you” when someone does or gives them something?
Authentic Jewish or Christian teaching is first and foremost about what you shall NOT do, about restraining one's baser impulses. And in a culture that offers so much material abundance, including 30 brands of toothpaste on the shelf to choose from, the idea of restraint and self-denial does not compute.
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Post by artraveler on Sept 11, 2020 9:02:20 GMT -8
On of my best friends was Monsignor Michael Kennedy, SJ. I met him at CSU Sacramento in the 80s and we remained good friends until he passed in 2004. Although there are decided differences in our religious preference Mike was a caring, considerate, and passionate Christian. The kind of priest everyone hopes to meet and actually are very rare.
On our first meeting I told Mike that I was not a Catholic. His response was classic, "that's alright, sometimes neither am I". Coming from someone in a roman collar and a Jesuit, that is a real admission. Mike was about eight years older than I and had attended Jesuit High School in Sacramento. There are two Catholic highs in Sacramento the other is Christian Brothers. One of the best attended high school football games every year is between the two schools, it referred to as the "holy bowl".
Mike never broke a confidence, gossiped or betrayed the trusts placed in him. He was active in removing bad priests and not protecting the bishops who protected them. When he passed in 04 there were over a thousand people at his funeral mass. I have missed him every day for the last 16 years.
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Post by artraveler on Sept 11, 2020 9:16:56 GMT -8
A Jewish boy falls in love with a Catholic girl. She doesn't want to convert so he takes lessons from a local priest. The lessons progress and the girl dumps him. However, he continues and becomes a Catholic.
One day he asks his local priest if he could join the priesthood. The priest somewhat surprised but welcoming says of course but it is a long road.
So, could I be a priest just like you? of course my son. Could I go further? You could become a Monsignor After that? Perhaps a bishop after that? Archbishop, but that is very rare How about after that? A Cardinal but the odds are not very good Well, after that? You could be elected Pope, but I can't see how Anything else? What do you want, to be G-d? Well one of our guys made it.
Father Mike told me this story. He thought it was funny as could be.
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Post by Brad Nelson on Sept 11, 2020 9:22:05 GMT -8
Wow. Monsignor Michael Sounds like a great guy. Present-tense. I’m sure he’s somewhere still doing the right thing.
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Post by kungfuzu on Sept 20, 2020 10:41:14 GMT -8
These two videos, especially the second, with Jim Caviezel are worth watching. In the second video, Caviezel is on fire. He puts together a number of observations from Reagan and others, along with his own beliefs, and just rips it. He is the type of man that is needed today to stand up and fight the modern-day pagans who are tearing down our world. Stand up to Satan and his minions
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Post by artraveler on Sept 20, 2020 13:02:01 GMT -8
Here is the best part of the remarks by Caviezel
Every lesson in history tells us that the greater risk lies in appeasement and this is the specter our well-meaning Christian liberal friends, our priests, bishops, and pastors refuse to face, that their policy of accommodation is appeasement and it gives us no choice between peace and war, only between fight and surrender. If we continue to accommodate, continue to back and retreat we will have to face the final demand, the final ultimatum and what then? Voices pleading for peace at any price, or ‘better Red than dead,’ or as one commentator put it he would rather live on his knees than die on his feet and therein lies the road to war because those voices do not speak for the rest of us.
You and I know and do not believe that life is so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery. If nothing in life is worth dying for, when did this begin? Just in the face of this enemy? Or should Moses have told the children of Israel to live in slavery under the Pharaoh’s? Should Christ have refused the cross?
Should the patriots at Concord Ridge have refused to fire the shot heard around the world? The martyrs of history were not foolish, and our beloved dead who gave their lives to stop the advance of the Nazis did not die in vain. Where then lies the road to peace? Well, it’s a simple answer after all, that you and I have the courage to tell our enemies, there is a price we will not pay and there is a point beyond which evil must not advance.”
If nothing in life is worth dying for,
Then is anything in life worth living for? In the leftist mind man is a disease, a virus to be stamped out and controlled. For the leftist life is a burden moving from crisis to crisis with no thought, no feeling, no love. Thus death, is a friend offering a secure place where man enters but once and never returned. The leftist seeks death, curries its favor, and in the end embraces death. Life is the affliction.
On this new year of 5781 let us measure ourselves by the times we have chosen life over death although, we know that death will ultimately triumph, not today. Today I chose life with all its ramifications, its perils, pitfalls and disappointments. And when death comes it will find me on my feet challenging it to take me, but never without a fight.
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Post by timothylane on Sept 20, 2020 13:22:40 GMT -8
Oh, boy, this Caviezel chap would make a good Jesus Christ, especially for the Passion. Oh, wait, he already did that, didn't he?
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Post by kungfuzu on Sept 20, 2020 13:39:39 GMT -8
Durant spends thirty-five pages on Spinoza in his "The Age of Louis XIV." The following quote fits perfectly the likes of Jonah Goldberg, et. al.
This applies equally for the "aristocracy" of scientists, politicians, philosophers and technocrats. We need to be constantly reminded that everyone is imperfect and people who have and seek power are generally more imperfect than those who don't. Jonah is particularly hypocritical/dishonest in this regard or he is monumentally lacking in self awareness. Lying bastard.
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Post by timothylane on Sept 20, 2020 14:22:36 GMT -8
The problem with rule by the best is that they aren't really the best. They certainly have no better morals or ethics (as a class) than the not-best. Nor are they more intelligent, though in theory they may (depending on how they're organized) be more knowledgeable. Even that doesn't really apply to the knowledge needed for proper governance.
For example, how much more does any elite know about economics than their "inferiors"? A few may have majored or minored in economics in college -- but then, I minored in it and no one is calling me elite. And that may merely mean that they know whatever economic theory is in fashion (generally Keynesianism over the past 60 years or so). That's worth as much as the theory itself is, which isn't much. Economic theoreticians are like the six blind men trying to figure out what an elephant is like. Each gets a portion and thinks it describes everything, and that's where they go wrong.
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Post by Brad Nelson on Sept 22, 2020 21:39:49 GMT -8
I remember reading the book (I forget which) about the four main groups who settled early America. One (I believe) was the predominantly Scotch-Irish in the American South. This was before slavery was anything of mention.
It was considered the duty of the monied and landed class in the South to contribute and to be the backbone of civic operation. As an educated man, the duty was to become judges, magistrates, administrators, etc.
And I have no doubt there were many abuses. But at the same time, compare this against your society being run by the rabble, by the awful people pictured in the Kung Video Diaries of The Hysterical Unwashed Crazies. In the Old South, these were educated men (and they were indeed men…women need not apply, which has its up side).
Unlike vagrants, bums, grifters, and the ever-present parasite class, they had a stake in things as they were and to make those things work in the future as well. Whatever you might think of them, they were living in estates, not on bearskin rugs on dirt floors. Civilization ran through them, not the rabble.
And that aristocracy had every right to rule…or at least a better right than most.
They had real, tangible assets. The difference today might be that those vying for aristocratic control over our lives generally have produced zero. Most, if not all, are professional mouth-pieces whose only product is political rabble-rousing. They have no skin in the game.
So I make a distinction between those monied, educated, and property-owning serious men of Old who thought they had an obligation to fill the political and administrative posts of a society. But times have changed. The assets being brought to the table in terms of ruling over us tend to be those (Obama is a perfect example) who are the most convincing liars, and certainly those whose profession is pitting one group against another.
Put Jonah Goldberg firmly on the side of mouthpieces who produce nothing.
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Post by timothylane on Sept 23, 2020 6:00:12 GMT -8
I believe the book you're thinking of is Albion's Seed by David Hackett Fischer, which we discussed in at least one thread at ST. Note that this attitude toward the landed aristocracy was inherited from Tory Britain, and is precisely why officers bought their commissions.
An additional point is to note that the French divided their aristocrats into the nobility of the sword (traditional landed aristocrats) and the nobility of the robe (newer aristocrats rising from the middle class).
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Post by kungfuzu on Sept 23, 2020 9:09:56 GMT -8
I think this is worth noting. There is a difference between men who fulfill their responsibility to their communities and those who abuse their positions.
One important point which needs to be made is that in the old American system, those of talent were allowed to rise and take their places in a sort of natural aristocracy. This kept the "aristocracy" churning with new blood and did not allow for the type of decadence which is so common among those who inherit their titles and special positions.
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Post by Brad Nelson on Sept 23, 2020 11:51:45 GMT -8
Yes, that's the book. If I find the time, I'll post the old review...assuming I can find it.
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Post by Brad Nelson on Sept 23, 2020 12:02:44 GMT -8
If you're trying to say there is a difference between the airheads raised on Twitter, feminism, and CNN — as opposed to the fellows who read Shakespeare and the classics — I will agree with you.
And its' this Dumbocracy that I believe is empowering the slimy bastards at the top. We'll always have slimy bastards groping to become lord and master of us all. But if the general population isn't a bunch of immoral dolts, they will be held at bay.
But no longer. Just look at the masks.
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