Moral Decay

A Ioved one recently posted a comment about the root cause of school shootings being the moral failure of our culture.

My first thought after reading his post was "Yes! Our culture has rejected its Judeo-Christian values and Greco-Roman rationalism and so this is what we get."

I think that is true (e.g. cultures throughout history have declined following a period of decadence in which the values that established and nurtured society were abandoned), but if we look at where this started in the West, it was with those of us who were entrusted with passing on these  systems of belief and thought.  My own nominalism and licentiousness are far more responsible for "moral decay" than the most stridently atheist monologue Bill Maher has to offer. 

Legalism is equally wrong, especially when applied to others and in particular when applied to people without faith. (It would make no sense for a rabbi to be concerned that I'm not keeping kosher, right?).  But many of us have rejected the notion of self discipline born out of love and gratitude towards God for what He's done for us.  If we can, by His grace, bring ourselves to the point where we as Christians are concerned first and foremost with loving God and loving our neighbors, with real zeal, we would be sowing the seeds of cultural transformation we long for.

Well said Mr. Rowe / Preach it Smokey

From a recent "Mike Rowe's "Off The Wall"" Facebook post:

"Last week, in your comments about the NFL, you made several references to “black people.” As a woman of color, I’ll remind you that the correct term is “African-American,” as I’m sure you know. You do good work with your foundation, but if you want to be heard by everyone, maybe you should speak more respectfully."

Carla Jamison

Hi Carla

If a black person tells me that they would like to be referred to as an “African-American,” I’m happy to address them as such. Doing otherwise would be rude. Likewise, if a white person asks me to call them “Irish-American,” or “Polish-American,” I’ll try to accommodate them as well. However - if someone attempts to enlighten me on the preferences of all black people or all white people, my antenna go up. Why? Because I'm not convinced a person’s true identity has anything to do with the color of their skin, the content of the DNA, or the country of their ancestors.

As a fan of biography, I’m curious to know more about my own history, as well as the history of others. But as a fan of The United States, I place no relevance whatsoever on the amount of German blood coursing through my veins, or the amount of African blood coursing through yours. I'm interested in what you believe, Clara, but I don't consider your ethnicity when evaluating the merits of your arguments. In other words, your heritage is interesting, but knowing where you came from has nothing to do with where you’ll wind up, or what kind of person you really are.

I could write a few thousand words on the evils of the hyphen, and its role in identity-politics. But I doubt I could say it better than Smokey Robinson did in a Def Poetry Jam seven years ago. If I were King of the World, this would be required viewing in every single high-school – starting tomorrow. The language is salty, but the sentiment is precisely what America needs to hear - no matter where you're from...

Have a great weekend.
Mike

https://youtu.be/iIkNsj6cDGc

Sorry Uncle Milty

Another area where Friedman and I diverge.  I think  his major philosophical blind spot was the existence of human nature, which allowed him to be a proponent of things like this.  I'm tempted by it myself (and would cash any check they sent my way, just like I take my interest deduction), but think it would be a disaster.

https://medium.com/basic-income/why-milton-friedman-supported-a-guaranteed-income-5-reasons-da6e628f6070

Violence generally begets violence

Interesting article.  What's most disturbing is the third paragraph in the snippet below.  I would contend, dear author, that promoting arson is definitely on the "intolerance" side of the "advocacy/intolerance" divide.  Perhaps an emotional college sophomore could be forgiven for not knowing the difference, but a writer for the New York times should.

In the end, violence will be met with violence until an orderly stasis is reached, or violence will lead to order without resistance - a state we will recognize to be tyranny. 

I would encourage everyone one fomenting for violence to read their history (not burn it) to find out what those swept into power through violence do to those who swept them in. They are ALWAYS the first to go because a mindless mob, fueled only by discontent and hate, is a weapon that can be wielded by anyone seeking to oust the current regime.

Meet the New Boss. Same as The Old Boss.

From the Times:

"That can play out in every aspect of student life, as William Gu, an Asian-American who writes for The Claremont Independent, found out after some of his articles showed up on conservative news sites. He received Facebook messages accusing him of “threatening marginalized communities” and was told at a party that “people are uncomfortable with you being here, please leave.”

Mr. Gu, a sophomore, said each incoming class “is getting progressively more radical.” He recalled a panel discussion during orientation at which a student said, “We should burn down Pomona” because “elite colleges represented white supremacist patriarchy.” Mr. Gu found the idea absurd. “You are going to a $60,000-a-year school and you’re either there because your parents are wealthy or the school has given you a full ride and you are saying it’s a dangerous environment for you,” he said. “There is a strange sense of entitlement.”

It can be hard to separate intense advocacy from intolerance, particularly for students who, Dr. Plaza said, arrive “empowered to feel they should have their say.”"

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/04/education/edlife/protests-claremont-college-student-demands.html?mc=aud_dev&mcid=fb-nytimes&mccr=AugustMC810mcdt%3D2017-08&subid=AugustMC810&ad-keywords=AudDevGate

Please....

I know this article is supposed to make my blood boil with self righteous indignation, but...please.  Some clerk at an Indiana Walmart put a sign up in the wrong place.  It was clearly a mistake or prank, not some attempt to suggest kids initiate a massacre. 

What is concerning is the fact many folks are quick to interpret such innocuous things through a lens of offense and puff up with outrage.  The truly chilling thing is the underlying belief that they "know what was really meant" by each trigger.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/2017/08/10/walmart-apologizes-for-own-school-year-like-hero-gun-display-sign.html

Rome and America

A loooong article, but informative wrt Rome's decline.  The author misses a clear opportunity to draw parallels between Roman "mos maiorum" and American Judeo-Christian values, but the tie seems obvious to me.

America's current crisis isn't one of politics or economics, but culture.

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/like-rome-america-could-be-ripe-for-tyranny/

Life

The point is not that all such situations end this positively, but that we should always err on the side of life and hope.

https://aleteia.org/2017/02/19/little-boy-born-without-a-brain-can-now-speak-count-and-attend-school/

Legalization

I'm ambivalent about legalization: parents need to raise their kids to not choose drugs. But the demographic analysis of policing in the accompanying bill will lead to more crime.  It's been demonstrated that pouncing on smaller crimes like vandalism and littering discourages bigger crimes - it's called community policing.  But if you have an ethnic gang dominating a neighborhood, well...tough luck for that community. If the police are going to be hit with claims of profiling, they will just make fewer arrests of the 'wrong kind', or possibly begin arbitrarily stopping the 'right' colored people to make sure their numbers balance out. These perverse incentives will lead to upwardly mobile flight from the city center and turn Portland 2020 into NYC 1970.

http://herb.co/2017/07/11/oregon-decriminalize-drugs/

Crunchy Conservatism

Reposting something from Rod Dreher that helped crystallize several strains of thought for me about 10 years ago.

A Crunchy Con Manifesto
By Rod Dreher

We are conservatives who stand outside the conservative mainstream; therefore, we can see things that matter more clearly.

Modern conservatism has become too focused on money, power, and the accumulation of stuff, and insufficiently concerned with the content of our individual and social character.

Big business deserves as much skepticism as big government.

Culture is more important than politics and economics.

A conservatism that does not practice restraint, humility, and good stewardship—especially of the natural world—is not fundamentally conservative.

Small, Local, Old, and Particular are almost always better than Big, Global, New, and Abstract.Beauty is more important than efficiency.

The relentlessness of media-driven pop culture deadens our senses to authentic truth, beauty, and wisdom.

We share Russell Kirk’s conviction that “the institution most essential to conserve is the family.“

Politics and economics won’t save us; if our culture is to be saved at all, it will be by faithfully living by the Permanent Things, conserving these ancient moral truths in the choices we make in our everyday lives.

Troubling on Two Fronts

1) The Alt-Right is the logical result of extracting Judeo-Christian virtues from conservativism.

2) The strengthening "we know what those words really mean, and they are not acceptable and must be silenced" movement on the Left is particularly disturbing.  This is also the logical result of the Left's ascendancy in cultural, social,  media, and intellectual circles; Free Speech is always viewed as a problem by those in power.

http://www.vox.com/2016/11/23/13659634/alt-right-trolling

Hope

Another item for future comment...

https://thepointmag.com/2017/politics/the-substance-of-things-hoped-for

Dehumanizing Our Enemies

A Facebook friend (the childhood friend of a cousin) posted something that, for the last 85 days or so, is easy to find on one's FB feed: a 25 word-or-less rant condemning Trump and calling anyone who voted for him an idiot.  Again, nothing that all forms of media haven't been saturated with since the election.

I either accidentally or absent mindedly expanded the post and read the comments. Mostly a chorus of vulgar "amens", but one lady made a comment about Trump only being in office 9 days and cutting the guy some slack.  Now I understand that it's precisely what Trump has done in those first days that has many upset.  "Let's wait and see" isn't going to be an acceptable strategy to those who think the man is burning down the country.

Did anyone respond with that sort of information? I.e.  "Hey, we're upset exactly because this guy has done so many things we oppose in such a short time." No.

Instead the woman was vulgarly insulted multiple times and one of the posters hoped for this lady to be sexually assaulted.  I don't know if these people knew each other or were simply connected through our mutual 'friend'. 

I post items that could be deemed controversial at times, but I stay away from online sparring because it's generally fruitless.  But I couldn't help coming to the defense of this woman.  In an exchange of comments, mostly questions for my part, I tried to call attention to the inconsistency of calling a person (Trump) out for his behavior while emulating it and calling for others to be assaulted. 

After a few exchanges, one of the people on the thread calmed down and admitted that she had gotten carried away by her emotions and the group's shared upset.  She IM'd me directly and we talked a little about who we voted for in the past. She even sent me a friend request (which I turned down - I don't really know this person yet). In any event, we listened to each other without changing any minds.

But the rest of the thread continued on, culminating in the commentor who had advocated for the assault of the woman who didn't agree with the group, commenting that he hoped I had a daughter and that she was also assaulted.

This is the mindset that many, many people are in, and it does not appear to be abating.  This is indeed a frightening time to live in this country.

Vaccines and Traditional Morality

I see a real parallel between the anti-vaccine movement and Western Civilization's departure from its historic/traditional morality over the past 100+ years.  Sometimes the formulation or application of traditional morality has produced harmful results (e.g. prideful and condescending - even hateful - attitudes to those whose actions fall outside the bounds of "approved" moral conduct) - like mercury-based vaccinations.  But rather than striving to find the appropriate expression of morality (i.e. non-mercury based vaccination formulas), a significant portion of society has decided to abandon traditional morality, with disastrous results.

Tim Keller re: Supposed Inconsistencies between Old and New Testaments

http://thegospelcoalition.org/mobile/article/tgc/making-sense-of-scriptures-inconsistency

50th Anniversary of The War on Poverty

While fighting "wars" against states of mind (terror) and existence (poverty, obesity, etc...) is patently absurd, the most unfortunate aspect of the thought process that leads to such wars is that it subtly necessitates a belief that the consequences of individual decisions must be borne primarily by society at large and prevented by communal, rather than individual action.  This means that rather than allowing the painful consequences of poor decisions to be shouldered primarily by those who make such decisions, society (i.e. it's 'agent', the government) must bear the costs of poor decisions and prevent future occurrences by curtailing the rights of all, with each failure of the former necessitating increased severity of the latter. The fact that our "caretakers" obtain power in ever increasing degrees as a part of the process and exercise their "duty" with increasing measures of glee is, of course, just a happy coincidence.

Still, the most tragic irony isn't the aforementioned "big brother" syndrome or the fact that a middle class person somewhere has a higher tax bill as a result; it is that a lack of consequences robs us (I'm really good at making bad decisions, mind you) of the opportunity to learn.  It might seem terrific at first to be unable to feel the pain of being burned, but such pain is ultimately healthy - it keeps us from injuring ourselves further or even irreparably. It may seem compassionate to shield a person from the consequences of his or her decision (and in some cases it is), but in many cases it retards one's growth as a human being and ultimately produces greater suffering in the end.