History | Cindy Wity

A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Hand Over

December 8, 2025 Leave a comment

When we hear someone say crazy things, we might say “Yeah, right” and shrug it off. But when a group of people say crazy things and a group of people agree with said crazy things, we wonder “What in the world is going on?”

Objective reality – the existence of things as they are – is obvious to everyone. And so are the values, accumulated over several millennia, of what is true and of what works and what hasn’t. But not everyone accepts the obvious and the values based on time proven objective reality. Some see themselves as Progressive in rejecting both.

Today’s academic, artistic, media, and political elites, a vanguard of Progressive Groupthink, reject the existence of things as they are and do so within the safe space of their ranks thereby creating an illusion of invulnerability and inherent morality. Members of this vanguard suppress dissenting opinions and avoid critically evaluated alternatives so as to maintain the group’s shared illusion of unanimity.

The vanguard’s conformity is maintained with mind guards – the media reports “right thinking” about a matter – and with self-censorship of deviations from shared beliefs and with shared views of the enemy – those who present a reality contrary to the groups’ notion of reality.

When we hear the vanguard’s irrational take on what is going on in the world, its roiling Doublethink, its name calling and shunning of voices outside its collective choir, and its dysfunctional decision-making which objective reality tells us will result in disastrous, dehumanizing, and even deadly outcomes, we ask “Where is this coming from and where is this going?

Those of us who keep an ear to the ground in order to hear what is approaching will answer “History is repeating itself.”

The objective reality of the murderous totalitarian regimes of the last century, which Progressives willfully ignore to promote their glorious future of equality via the same means, will help us understand the denial-of-reality collaboration of today’s intelligentsia – those who hold to one way of thinking – and their quest for total domination of the body, mind, and soul with Progressive Groupthink.

Specifically, Russian Soviet history will help us understand the conformity dynamic behind today’s intelligentsia. For this understanding I turn to one of the most informed scholars of the Russian history of ideas as communicated in its literature: Northwestern Professor Gary Saul Morson.

***

In Morson’s magnum opus Wonder Confronts Certainty: Russian Writers on the Timeless Questions and Why Their Answers Matter Morson details how politics and literature, in the writings of realists, idealists, and revolutionaries, played against each other during the Soviet period.

He describes Soviet thinking that rejected the realism and the real people depicted in nineteenth-century Russian fiction and required that reality be written to include “not only of the observable present but also the inevitable future in the making” and with Socialist Realist heroes – utopianism made flesh.

Writers of Russian realism – Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Chekhov, Solzhenitsyn, and others – wrote about what they saw and experienced. They are the “wonder” in the title. They represented the world as it was in their writings about the Gulag, mass starvation, torture, unspeakable violence, about how people thought about and dealt with what was going on, and about how many succumbed to the imposed Soviet mindset.

Russian realist authors confronted those of the “certainty,” those who wrote redefined reality in terms of the “observable present and the inevitable future in the making” and in terms of “positive heroes.”

The “positive hero” was to set an example for the reader’s behavior. A Soviet cosmonaut, for one example, became a “positive hero.” A cosmonaut’s space trip was seen as science, materialism, and atheism triumphing over the transcendent values held in the U.S., the enemy of the Soviet Union.

The “certainty” writers followed the lead of the embodiment of “certainty” – Vladimir Lenin. Lenin mocked his opponents’ self-characterization as ‘seekers’ of truth. He held that dialectical materialists do not seek truth; they already possess it. And so, the party-minded “positive hero” refused dialogue, refused to see any alternatives to the Marxist-Leninist-materialist-atheistic “truth” espoused by the party, the representatives of Karl Marx’s class-struggling proletariat.

From Wonder Confronts Certainty:

“The Soviets would label fidelity to present facts “bourgeois objectivism.” It was the best that could be expected from the age of realism, but must give way to socialist realism, which shows the ideal world inevitably coming. The socialist realist author was expected to focus on the people of the future, “positive heroes” exhibiting complete “Party-mindedness.” True positive heroes do not have bring their thinking into accord with the party, a process requiring effort; they exhibit Party-mindedness so thorough that no effort is required”

“Party-mindedness”, we learn from the writings of Russian realist authors, was propagated through the means of propaganda, show trials, random arrests, and the constant terror that there might be any hint, any innuendo, any false statement that would convict one of not being party-minded.

The “party-mindedness” of the 20^th century Russian intelligentsia, its conformity to only one way of thinking, is replicated today.

***

Here’s Morson in his Touchtone article Beyond Belief: Literary Reflections on Thoughtless Conformity:

“I happened to witness two professors waiting for an elevator. To make conversation, one voiced an opinion on some political question to see if the other agreed. When she did, they chattered away on a dozen other topics with perfect assurance that they agreed on those, too. Evidently, their beliefs came as a package. Subsequently I noticed this way of thinking many times, as I imagine many of my readers have.

The process works something like this: a person first chooses the group with whom he wishes to identify and then adopts its opinions. He believes as strongly in gun control, let us say, as he does in supporting Planned Parenthood, defunding the police, and banning fossil fuels. It is evident that no arguments or evidence can shake his opinions on any of these topics because arguments or evidence had nothing to do with why they were adopted.

To be sure, a person who thinks this way can cite facts and reasons to justify his opinion, but they have been acquired in the same way as the opinion itself. They are the same reasons others in the group have learned to give. I used to find it eerie to hear repeatedly the same arguments expressed in the same phrases, as if I were listening to a recording rather than to highly educated people who imagined that, unlike their intellectual inferiors, they had arrived at opinions rationally and would change them as evidence warranted. I thought of Jonathan Swift’s observation that no one was ever talked out of an opinion he was not first talked into.”

***

Reading Morson’s article, I was reminded of the easy-going liberal mindset of the Stiva Oblonsky character in Tolstoy’s Russian realism novel Anna Karenina.

Behind Stiva’s smile, his self-possessed mannerisms and hedonism is what Tolstoy described as “the liberalism of the blood.”

From the novel:

“Stepan Arkadyevitch took and read a liberal newspaper, not a radical one, but one advocating the viewpoint maintained by the majority. And even though neither science, nor art or politics held any particular interest for him, he firmly maintained the same views on all these subjects that were maintained by the majority and by his paper, and he changed them only when the majority changed them, or, better put, he did not change them at all; they imperceptibly changed within him . . .

“And so liberalism had become a habit of Stepan Arkadyevitch’s, and he liked his newspaper, as he did his cigar after dinner, for the slight fog it diffused in his brain.”

Stiva, we learn in in the novel, does not recognize his conscious when it speaks to him. And that is aided by his living-in-the-moment forgetting. He did not want to remember any unpleasant thing.

Self-deception and romantic ideology play key roles in Anna’s life.

***

Czeslaw Milosz, Polish American poet, novelist, translator, critic, and diplomat, is best known for The Captive Mind (1953). His essay collection focuses on intellectuals, specifically poets and other writers.

As Charles Haywood writes in his 2019 article The Captive Mind (Czeslaw Milosz), [Milosz’s] “book shows how mental gymnastics, rather than coercion, caused writers under Communism to adhere to Communism. Thereby, indirectly, it congratulates writers who believe their minds free from such, or other, contortions.

“The West incorrectly sees “might and coercion” as the reasons those in Eastern Europe submit to Communism. But, rather, unwilling to face either physical or spiritual death, many choose instead to be “reborn” through taking these metaphorical pills, because “[t]here is an internal longing for harmony and happiness that lies deeper than ordinary fear or the desire to escape misery or physical destruction.” Intellectuals, and artists especially, do not want to be “internal exiles, irreconcilable, non-participating, eroded by hatred.” So they swallow the pills and adopt the “New Faith” (a term Milosz uses throughout the book) which offers the intellectual the certainty he is both correct and virtuous, and therefore gives him a sense of belonging, gives him a feeling of being “warm-hearted and good . . . a friend of mankind—not mankind as it is, but as it should be.”” (Emphasis mine.)

Returning to Morson’s article about package thinking, Morson relates

“What really matters, [Czeslaw} Milosz explains, is “the intellectual’s feeling of belonging.” His defining “characteristic is his fear of thinking for himself.” For this reason, as well as to prosper, he must root out all the old ways of thinking. Milosz describes a phenomenon with which university people are all too familiar, the always incomplete process of teaching oneself to say the right things (in the right words), and avoid saying the wrong ones, so that one never makes a slip entailing ostracism or worse. Of course, the best way to do this is to get oneself actually to share the prescribed views. Milosz describes how

after long acquaintance with his role, a man grows into it so closely that he can no longer differentiate his true self from the self he simulates, so that even the most intimate of individuals speak to each other in Party slogans. To identify self with the role one is obliged to play . . . permits a relaxation of one’s vigilance. Proper reflexes at the proper time become truly automatic.”

***

One obvious feature of our culture’s downward trend toward mindless conformity is critical thinking’s easy alternative: clicking on a machine to receive packaged thoughts.

Why think when packaged thoughts are there for the clicking? And why expand one’s personal bandwidth when you can reaffirm your tribal identity with a click?

Why research and consider a range of ideas and thoughts when clicking on machine AI is ready to do away with mystery and your curiosity, wonder, and impatience? And why think outside package thinking when life is short – shortened by every minute clicking on a machine.

Why read classic literature to gain wisdom, insight, and understanding from other people in other places and in other times, when you can click on a remote for package thinking entertainment.

Have you bought into the globalist, academic, secular and progressive (GASP) package (a feature of Wikipedia) that censors alternative views as “extremist” or “fringe theories” or “conspiracy theories” or “racist?”

Did you buy into the globalist open borders “welcoming the stranger” package where millions of unvetted illegal invaders entered the country as simple or criminal or terrorism opportunists? Did you accept the package thinking that allows third world invaders into our country to replace American workers and American values and do all manner of harm to its citizens as empathy, as what Jesus would do? Take a look at the strangers welcomed: Arrested: Worst of the Worst | Homeland Security And, there’s this: They Called It ‘Compassion’ — But it was Child Trafficking – American Thinker

Are you buying into the central planning democratic socialism package where everyone, except certain individuals who hold more power and privilege, must be made equal no matter the human cost? Are you buying into the central planning democratic socialism package and willfully forgetting the objective reality of the horrors of socialism/communism? Are you willfully handing over your life, your thoughts, to “Party-mindedness”?

Did you accept the “don’t question the science” COVID package thinking of mandates, masking, social distancing, vaccine passports, isolation camps, vaccine efficacy, and of COVID’s origin lies? America’s COVID Response Was Based on Lies

Likewise, did you not question the package thinking of “climate experts” who announced their verdict that the world would end if we didn’t act now. Not long ago, woven into almost every weather report on local and mainstream media when major weather events (floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, droughts, and wildfires) occurred was the narrative that climate change was behind them – without ever mentioning large-scale natural phenomena such as solar cycles, ocean currents and volcanoes that have been affecting weather for many millennia.

How Dare You

The Green New scam was behind Biden’s $93 Billion Crony Climate Heist. Will declassifying carbon dioxide (necessary for all of life) as a pollutant and the end of carbon dioxide regulation mean the end of the Green New scam? Are we now seeing The End of the Green New Scam? | The Rude Awakening? Matt Ridely thinks so: The end of the climate cult – The Spectator World

(A climate expert I trust: https://judithcurry.com/about/)

Do you go along with the package thinking of the [John] Rawlsian theory of ad hoc justice that, for example, releases someone arrested 40 times, is not considered a “criminal” because of their minority status, and is released by a judge back onto the street where he sets a woman on fire?

Do you buy philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s notion that “Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains” – the package thinking that says that people are entirely products of their environment, of their society, of their age, and that’s why they do what they do. Therefore, they are not responsible for what they do because of external influence. That’s the package thinking behind the Rawlsian theory of justice and behind the executions and horrors of the French revolution working to change social environment.

Have you agreed with the insurrection thought package being espoused by The Seditious Six imploring military service members to “refuse illegal orders” thereby implying that orders coming out of the Trump administration are considered illegal by them and therefore military service members should disobey their commanding officer and join the club of the “Party-minded.” Remember, package thinking has only one train of thought – gaining and maintaining power over reality.

Have you agreed with the insurrection package thinking espoused previously by NYT’s op-ed columnist David Brooks? Do the values of your party-minded package thinking allow you to hamstring a DEMOCRACY! elected president with the rulings of party-minded federal court judges that will be overturned. Do the values of your party-minded package thinking justify the deep state, in the labyrinth of government, to sabotage the efforts of a Democratically elected President?

Do the values of your package thinking allow you to call for uprisings by any means necessary, to burn down buildings, to destroy property, to destroy businesses, to steal, do violence on others, to defund the police, to create pipe bombs, to assassinate? To ignore your conscience?

Did you accept the “Danger to our Democracy” thought package the media delivered during the last presidential election cycle? It should be obvious from the likes of David Brooks, that the “guardians of democracy” are the ones who want to tear it down.

Have bought into the diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) playbook that conforms and coerces everyone to identify with Soviet style party-mindedness package thinking?

Have bought into viewing everything including humans through the lens of materialism?

Have you bought into package thinking so as to not be considered an outsider? Have you bought into conformity for conformity’s sake?

Is censorship the worst thing that can happen to a people? Or, is it “Party-mindedness?”

When we hear someone say crazy things, we might say “Yeah, right” and shrug it off. But when a group of people say crazy things with the smug air of certainty and people agree with said crazy things, we wonder “What in the world is going on?” and “Where is this coming from and where is it going?”

What happened in Russia didn’t stay in Russia. And a mind is still a terrible thing to hand over.

What happened in Russia didn’t stay in Russia . . . Britain Is Lost | ZeroHedge

~~~~~

You can put your ear to the road and hear what is quickly approaching. Download and listen to the following podcasts:

London is falling – or has it fallen already?

Liz Truss, the 56th prime minister of the United Kingdom, in her very first episode of The Liz Truss Show discusses how bad things are in Britain with a mass migration and economic doom loop – and how to defeat the deep state who have let this happen

London is falling – Liz Truss

https://justthenews.com/podcasts/liz-truss-show/london-falling-or-has-it-fallen-already

~~~

Interview with Professor Gary Saul Morson on Tolstoy, Faith, Package Thinking, and The Importance of Critical Thinking

Professor Gary Saul Morson shares his thought-provoking definition of an intellectual—someone who seeks truth independently, values ideas for their own sake, and stands apart from identity-driven thinking. Whether discussing classic Russian Literature or analyzing modern society, Professor Morson is one of the most insightful and consequential scholars of our time. Discover how this interview, and its exploration of timeless topics, can inspire bold, principled leadership and innovation within today’s business environment.

Gary Saul Morson on Tolstoy, Faith, Package Thinking, and The Importance of Critical Thinking

Interview with Professor Gary Saul Morson on Tolstoy, Faith, and The Importance of Critical Thinking – The Profitable Table Fed by Woolco Foods | Acast

~~~

The Moral Imagination – Michael Matheson Miller

Gary Saul Morson Ph.D.: Thinking Like Lenin

Vladimir Lenin’s ideas are alive and well today: Party-ness, politics as win-lose, zero-sum game, Who-Whom, rejection of truth, ideology, violence, philosophical materialism, adherence to lying.

Thinking Like Lenin, with Gary Saul Morson

Ep. 15: Thinking Like Lenin, with Gary Saul Morson

Is Hope Naïve in a World Like Ours? | Esau McCaulley & Gary Saul Morson at Northwestern

~~~~~

Quotes:

In the long run my observations have convinced me that some men, reasoning preposterously, first establish some conclusion in their minds which, either because of its being their own or because of their having received it from some person who has their entire confidence, impresses them so deeply that one finds it impossible ever to get it out of their heads. Such arguments in support of their fixed idea … gain their instant acceptance and applause. On the other hand whatever is brought forward against it, however ingenious and conclusive, they receive with disdain or with hot rage – if indeed it does not make them ill. Beside themselves with passion, some of them would not be backward even about scheming to suppress and silence their adversaries. I have had some experience of this myself. … No good can come of dealing with such people, especially to the extent that their company may be not only unpleasant but dangerous. Galileo Galilei

If the Brave New World cannot insert a square peg into a round hole, it will redefine “roundness” until a perfect fit results.

-Jerome Meckier, from Aldous Huxley: Satire and Structure

…a sense of unity is opposite of a sense of uniformity. Uniformity, where everyone “belongs”, uses the same cliches, thinks alike and behaves alike, produces a society which seems comfortable at first but is totally lacking in human dignity. Real unity tolerates dissent and rejoices in variety of outlook and tradition, realizes that it is man’s destiny to unite and not divide… Unity, so understood, is the extra dimension that raises the sense of belonging into genuine human life.

-Northrop Frye, from The Bush Garden

Wise men speak because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something. -Plato

“The past is our always-available counterculture, and it’s a rich one. Every minute you spend attending to something not-immediately-present, you are helping to build a counterculture.” ― Alan Jacobs

~~~~~

Links:

Why are intellectuals — those whose thinking is supposed to be most refined — so susceptible to totalitarianism? Gary Saul Morson offers three explanations from the treasury of Russian literature.

https://tomklingenstein.com/mind-forgd-manacles-why-intellectuals-conform/

The greatest depiction of woke totalitarianism was written 150 years ago in Russia

Re-Possessed

The Return of the ‘Useful Idiot’

The Captive Mind: A Summary of Czesław Miłosz’s Classic Work on Totalitarianism

Anti-Communism Week has been marked for November 2025. Writer-producer Julie Behling’s documentary “Beneath Sheep’s Clothing” warns of communism’s devastation: “Globally, communism claimed the lives of approximately 150 million people in the 20th century.”

‘Beneath Sheep’s Clothing’: Communism’s Capture Of America | ZeroHedge

Totalitarian governments cannot afford that its citizens remain autonomous persons. This poses a threat to their quest to consolidate power. Individual liberty threatens the theoretical, utopian foundations of promising the re-distribution of goods, and equality; communism ultimately fails to re-distribute the essence of human nature.

10 Habits of Mind to Avoid Ideological Thinking

Everyday Habits That Reveal a Low IQ (Backed by Psychology)

Everyday Habits That Reveal a Low IQ (Backed by Psychology) – YouTube

~~~~~

Added 12-15-2025:

Sam Faddis (formerly with the CIA) sits down to talk about the reality of the ongoing Marxist revolution in America.

The Revolution Right Here At Home – by Sam Faddis

Filed under 2025 Current Events, Communism, cultural Marxism, Culture, Democracy, History, Political Commentary, Politics, social commentary, totalitarianism Tagged with Communism, Democracy, groupthink, history, Marxism, mind control, package thinking, party-mindedness, politics, progressivism, russia, Soviet Union, totalitarianism, Valdimir Lenin

Truest Grit

January 28, 2024 Leave a comment

The life of Rose E. Livingston is something to behold. The rescued becomes the rescuer. The restored becomes the restorer. And the wronged becomes redeemer. Do not doubt the resolve of the battered and broken-jawed Rose. And do not dismiss the value she placed on the lives of young women even as a price was put on her head. Please read on.

Anyone calling this diminutive woman (about five feet tall and weighing about 90 pounds) “a force to be reckoned with” would sound daft. But this phrase matches the description of Rose in the numerous newspaper clippings of her time. The “Angel of Chinatown” intervened in the coercion of White females into prostitution rings in New York City’s Chinatown during the Progressive Era (1890–1920).

Read about Rose, “the battling freelance missionary of Chinatown”, in the New York Times Dec. 3^rd, 1912 article [i]:

How Rose works – a quote from the above article:

“I don’t go in to visit these girls and give them a tract and say ‘God bless you,’ and invite them around to take tea with me. That’s not my kind of work. There are some girls that it’s mighty hard to help, but there are some little, fresh young things that have just been brought to Chinatown, and that you can sometimes reach in time to save them. Sometimes you can get there before the harm is done. There are 350 white girls in Chinatown now, by friends. I got thirty-seven of them out last year. I once rescued a little bit of a girl who was only 10 years old. That’s the sort of work it is. I don’t get much help. It seems as though as soon as a cop in Chinatown shows himself to be honest they move him to some other part of town. They don’t want honest cops down there. I don’t know whose fault it is — Gaynor‘s or Waldo‘s or whose — but it makes it mighty hard sometimes. Sometimes they tell me these are bad girls and there’s nothing I can do for them. They try to tell me that these girls could escape if they wanted to, but that they don’t want to. I tell you it isn’t true. I saw a girl running away from a cadet, and she ran almost into a policeman’s arms. I was over there in a jiffy. ‘Officer,’ I said, ‘won’t you protect this poor girl from this fellow?’ and, would you believe it. that policeman just knocked her back into the cadet’s arms and watched while he beat her up.”

The following are various accounts of Rose’s life primarily sourced from early 1900s newspaper articles:

“It’s believed Rose was only ten years of age when she was taken from her home and transported to New York City’s notorious Chinatown, an area known for prostitution and opium dens. There, she would become forcibly hooked on opium. The man who held her captive sexually abused her, and by the time Rose was sixteen, she’d given birth to two children.” [ii]

~~~~

“Rose Livingston was an American suffrage activist and social reformer. She was abducted as a young girl and forced to work as a prostitute in New York’s Chinatown. Livingston developed a drug problem, but managed to escape. She then devoted her life to helping prostitutes and victims of human trafficking, teaching them about Christianity, gaining the nickname the “Angel of Chinatown.” In 1910, she helped pass the Mann Act, which made interstate sex trafficking a federal crime. Livingston was attacked in 1912, while trying to rescue a prostitute, suffering permanent damage to her jaw. In 1914, her life was threatened after a gang offered a $500 reward for her death. Livingston supported woman suffrage, believing that if women could vote they might not be driven to prostitution. She was well-known for her work for suffrage and against human trafficking; in 1929 she received a gold medal from the National Institute of Social Science, and in 1937 she received a silver cup from Edith Claire Bryce of the Peace House. Livingston lived in poverty most of her life, but in 1934 the public raised a retirement fund for her. By this point, she had worked for three decades and rescued over 5,000 young women and children. She retired in 1936.”[iii]

~~~~

“In 1909, Rose Livingston, a reform worker, was working to intervene in the coercion of White females into prostitution rings in New York City’s Chinatown (“Save Young Girls from Chinatown,” 1909, p. 7). In 1912, she was brutally beaten when she attempted to save a girl from her procurer (“How Rose Livingston Works in Chinatown,” 1912, p. 5). Livingston, who was supported by several suffrage organizations, toured the country lecturing on white slavery in Chinatown. Moreover, women’s organizations were active in the anti-prostitution movement’s efforts; for example, the Woman Suffrage Party of New York listed the “abolition not regulation of the White Slave traffic” (p. 46) as a chief component of its social reform agenda (Laidlaw, 1914). Livingston routinely criticized the police for turning a blind eye to prostitution. Her efforts brought public pressure on Mayor Gaynor to seriously address the issue of the prostitution rings (“How Rose Livingston Works in Chinatown,” 1912, p. 5). Livingston was all too familiar with white slavery in Chinatown. She herself had been held captive and abused from the age of 10 to 17. At the ages of 12 and 15 she gave birth to her captor’s children. Eventually she was rescued by a missionary worker and underwent a religious conversion (Lui, 2009).”[iv]

~~~~

The following is sourced from multiple newspaper clippings referenced below [v]:

Rose Livingston (1876 – December 26, 1975), known as the Angel of Chinatown, was a suffragist who worked to free prostitutes and victims of sexual slavery. With financial and social support from Harriet Burton Laidlaw and other noted suffragettes, as well as the Rose Livingston Prudential Committee, she worked in New York City‘s Chinatown and in other cities to rescue girls from forced prostitution, and helped pass the Mann Act to make interstate sex trafficking a federal crime.

Livingston initially thought that she wanted to work overseas as a missionary. She realized, though, that there was much good that she could do in New York. She referred to herself as a missionary and worked nights looking for pre-teen and teenage girls who were forced into sexual slavery. A small and thin woman, she was beaten and shot, sometimes spending months in the hospital recovering from her injuries. Once she rescued girls, she helped them transition into a life of freedom. She lectured about the dangers of children and young women being forced into sex work. She also advocated for women’s right to vote.

Early life

Rose Livingston was born in New York in 1876. Her parents were born in New York. Livingston was reportedly raised in Ohio and Texas in the Methodist faith. Livingston came to New York City at age 12.

Livingston was initially interested in becoming a foreign missionary, but decided she could be an independent missionary in New York City after she saw a drug-crazed girl being rescued.

Life’s work

Initially, about 1903, Livingstone worked at Sunshine Settlement, a settlement house on Baxter and at 106 Bayard Street in New York City. Established in 1900, Sunshine Settlement helped mothers and poor children by providing health services, education, and “healthful” visits to the seaside beaches. Gospel services and lectures were performed there. It offered a kindergarten, sewing school, and a library. Clients could request medical and legal advice. It operated through ca. 1911.

Unidentified striker, Fola La Follette and Rose Livingston in New York City in 1913

Background

Girls and women became sexual slaves by being physically kidnapped, drugged, or unknowingly lured into the industry with a promise of a job or an adventure. In 1934, the New York City police department statistics showed that 4,000 females disappeared from that city each year, and many more disappeared without being reported missing. Their captors often got the girls addicted to drugs to better contain and control them. Ultimately, some girls were rescued and did well, some were rescued but were so broken they had to be institutionalized, some died early, and others remained as captive sex workers.

Many girls that Livingston rescued said something like, “I met him and he was nice to me. Then he invited me to go for a ride.” Then the girls were handed off to another person who would drug, poison, beat, or otherwise mistreat them. Girls were often transported across state lines. Livingston found that there was an auction on the Lower East Side of New York where girls and women were sold.

Rescues

Focusing on girls that were nine to seventeen years of age, Livingston made it her life’s work to free thousands of girls and women from sexual slavery beginning on March 4, 1903 or about 1904. Her modus operandi was to follow men that were sexual slavers, figure out what females were held captive, make friends with them, and encourage them to escape. She looked for enslaved girls in opium dens, dance halls, and bars, particularly in New York City’s Chinatown and the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Sometimes she ventured out of the city to Boston, Newark, Bridgeport, New Haven, and Chicago. In 1907, there were 300 girls younger than 18 in Chinatown that were sex workers, out of a total of 800 white slaves. Six years later, she could not find any girls under age 18 there.

She had a masculine looking face and she wore short hair and men’s clothing, which allowed her to blend in at dance halls and other night spots when she went in search of girls to rescue.

Once freed, she offered the girls and young women rehabilitation and ministered to them in accordance with her Christian faith. Called the “Angel of Chinatown”, she considered herself a missionary and an independent social worker. She saved an eight-year-old girl who had been kidnapped and taken to Philadelphia, after being asked by her father to find his daughter. There were times when bravery and quick thinking helped her rescue girls, like the time that she saved a girl who was being kidnapped by three men. She motioned that she had a gun in her pocket and waited for the police, who arrested the men. She went on high-speed chases in taxis to save girls. When she rescued girls, she took them to her apartment, rather than the police or the children’s society, and contacted the girls’ families. She was aware of the fact that it was a difficult process to transition back into a family, so she did not believe in rushing girls back to their parents’ homes. Livingston described her brand of missionary work:

“I don’t go in to visit these girls and give them a tract and say ‘God bless you’, and invite them around to take tea with me. That’s not my kind of work. There are some girls that it might hard to help, but there are some little, fresh young things that have just been brought to Chinatown, and that you can sometimes reach in time to save them. Sometimes you can get there before the harm is done.”

— Rose Livingston, speaking at the Metropolitan Temple, 1912

By 1934, with over 30 years of experience, the number of young women Livingston had reportedly rescued varied: 800, 4,000, or 5,000 girls or young women. Of the girls that she rescued, only two returned to life as a sex worker. If the girl had a baby, in her experience, not one of the girls’ families took the baby into the family. Many of the girls she rescued looked on her as a mother, and brought potential husbands to her for approval. The League of Nations identified her as a noted figure in the fight against sexual slavery around the world. She found that there was a world-wide network of trafficking sexual slaves. In a report by the League,

“Miss Livingston sets forth the diabolical tactics of white slave rings in this country as she has seen them. She suggests a remedy and sounds a warning to mothers and fathers.”

— League of Nations

She offered solutions to the sexual slavery problem, particularly regarding girls and young women. She asked all women to be more understanding of children, so that they did not want to run away from home. She suggested that cities hire plain-clothed police women to patrol vice-ridden districts to prevent girls from being led into slavery. She asked parents to talk to their daughters about the danger of being taken, without terrorizing them. Livingston stated that she believed that this would dramatically reduce the likelihood of girls being kidnapped by avoiding the first false, reckless step—like getting into the car of a stranger.

Financial support

Before the Rose Livingston Committee was established, she received support from Miss Elizabeth Voss, whose father had been the city’s District Attorney. The Committee of Fourteen women from Brooklyn supported her. At some point a church in Brooklyn, New York provided for her maintenance. About 1911, she became affiliated with suffragettes who offered her support. A few women met her when she was trying to save a girl from killing herself. They introduced Livingston to Harriet Burton Laidlaw whose husband, James Laidlaw, created the Committee of Three with Rev. M. Sanderson and Lawrence Chamberlain.

In the late 1920s or early 1930, her work was sponsored by the Rose Livingston Committee, also called the Rose Livingston Prudential Committee, who paid her $600 (~$10,511 in 2022) a year. She used part of her salary to pay for clothes and food for the girls she rescued. The members of the committee included women, several ministers, and a former assistant district attorney. Livingston was supported, financially and socially, by Harriet Burton Laidlaw, as well as other noted suffragettes across the country, and James Lees Laidlaw. She lectured across the country about the prevalence of white slavery. The Rose Livingston Committee issued an annual report of the freed girls and convicted people who were the slaveholders.

Danger

As she rescued women, she put herself in danger. About five feet tall and weighing about 90 pounds, she faced male procurers, or cadets, as she tried to rescue girls and women. She was severely beaten, shot, wounded, and thrown out windows. In 1912, she was severely beaten, resulting in permanent damage. She had severe neuritis and persistent neuralgic pain due to a fracture of the alveolar process of the upper jaw bone. On one side of her face, she lost all of the teeth of the upper jaw.

In 1914, a contract was taken out on her life for $500 (equivalent to $14,610 in 2022). Once, a few years before 1934, she was hurt so badly trying to save a girl from Boston that she was in the hospital for five months and on crutches for two years. She was pushed from a roof of the red-light district in Brooklyn. By 1933, she had 22 beatings, one of which caused severe injury of her eyes. After a number of operations, her eyesight continued to fail her in the 1930s. She carried a gun with her, but was never known to have shot at anyone.

Mann Act

Before 1910, it was not illegal to engage in sex trafficking across state lines. Livingston helped pass the Mann Act, that made interstate sex trafficking a federal crime in 1910.

Awards

A week of testimonial dinners were conducted in 1927 to celebrate the 24 years that she helped girls attain freedom. In 1929, she was awarded a gold medal by the National Institute of Social Sciences, for her “unique work and indefatigable faithfulness for almost 30 years.” In 1937 she was awarded a silver cup by Mrs. J. Sergeant Cram (Edith Claire Bryce) of the Peace House for her “deeds of courage without violence”.

Personal life

In 1914, she participated in one of the Suffrage Hikes from Manhattan to Albany, New York and over the years, she lectured about women’s suffrage. In 1914, she conducted lectures throughout 40 counties of Ohio for the Ohio Woman Suffrage Association to explain to girls the dangers of being led into a life as a sexual worker.

In order to search for girls at night, Livingston slept during the day for about three hours. To protect her safety, only her best friends knew her address. She lived in cold water flats and had a very frugal lifestyle. For instance, she lived in a three-room flat on E. 49th Street in New York City for 46 years, beginning about 1929. It was near the East River. By 1928, she wore masculine clothing. In 1934, she was found living in poverty, and a retirement fund was established for her.

Although she read the Bible and a book on Christian Science, she did not attend church services, unless she had agreed to speak at the church. She did not consider herself a Christian Scientist.

Although she was quoted as saying that she was still involved helping girls in 1950, she retired after 1937 and received a pension of $100 per month. She was cared for by neighbors who helped her obtain a supplemental Social Security pension and did chores for her. She particularly needed help once she started to lose her sight. She died on December 26, 1975, at 99 years of age. A rabbi conducted a Jewish service for her, and her friend, Mike Supple, a Catholic, arranged for a Mass in her memory.

References

Fields, Sydney (January 19, 1976). “Only Human”. New York Daily News. p. 43. Retrieved March 12, 2020 – via newspapers.com (clipping).
“Rose Livingston, lived at E. 49th Street, NYC. 50 years of age, born in New York”, Manhattan, New York, New York, Enumeration District: 0628, United States of America, Bureau of the Census. Fifteenth Census of the United States, 1930., Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration
“The Free-Lance Soul Saver of New York’s Slums”. Salt Lake Telegram. January 28, 1917. p. 26. Retrieved March 13, 2020.
“‘Angel’ Braves Dens of Vice to Rescue Girls”. Brooklyn Daily Eagle. March 4, 1934. p. 6. Retrieved March 13, 2020 – via newspapers.com (clipping).
“Suffrage Speakers to Come Next Week”. News-Journal. October 7, 1914. p. 4. Retrieved March 13, 2020.
“Finds Mission Work at Home” (PDF), The New York Sun, March 21, 1934
Dutka, Alan F. (2014). AsiaTown Cleveland: From Tong Wars to Dim Sum. Arcadia Publishing. p. 29. ISBN 9781625850867.
“22 Beatings and Medal Reward Angel of Chinatown – Rose Livingston”. El Paso Herald-Post. March 17, 1933. p. 9. Retrieved March 12, 2020 – via newspapers.com (clipping).
“Gets Cup for Lone Fight Against Vice – Rose Livingston”. The Evening Sun. November 4, 1937. p. 15. Retrieved March 12, 2020 – via newspapers.com (clipping).
Bibliography of College, Social, University and Church Settlements. Blakely Press. 1905.
“Sunshine Settlement of New York City records”. New York Public Library Archives. Retrieved March 12, 2020.
Church, Douglas (September 16, 1934). “White Slave Racket, America’s Growing Curse: Rose Livingston, “Angel of Chinatown”, Warns Mothers to Be on Their Guard”. St. Joseph Gazette. p. 19. Retrieved March 12, 2020 – via newspapers.com (clipping).
“The American Truth – Rose Livingston”. The Times. March 25, 1928. p. 48. Retrieved March 12, 2020 – via newspapers.com (clipping).
“The American Truth, part 2 – Rose Livingston”. The Times. March 25, 1928. p. 49. Retrieved March 12, 2020 – via newspapers.com (clipping).
“Rev. Hopkins Tells of Wart to White Slavery Traffic”. The Akron Beacon Journal. March 11, 1913. p. 5. Retrieved March 12, 2020 – via newspapers.com (clipping).
“Suffragists Give Talk In The Park. Miss Rose Livingston and Mrs. Myron Vorce Give Address”, Mansfield Shield, October 13, 1914
United Press (August 17, 1934), “Chinatown Angel Found Destitute”, Berkeley Daily Gazette – via newspapers.com (clipping)
“‘Angel of Chinatown’ Holds Her Anniversary”. Bridgeport Telegram. March 5, 1927. p. 19. Retrieved March 13, 2020 – via newspapers.com (clipping).
“Rose E. Livingston”. Jane Addams Digital Edition. Retrieved September 11, 2019.
Rosen, Ruth (1983), The Lost Sisterhood: Prostitution in America, 1900-1918, JHU Press, p. 57, ISBN 9780801826658
Lui, Mary Ting Yi (September 1, 2009), “Saving Young Girls from Chinatown: White Slavery and Woman Suffrage, 1910–1920”, Journal of the History of Sexuality, 18 (3): 393–417, doi:10.1353/sex.0.0069, PMID 19739340, S2CID 27886467
“How Rose Livingston Works In Chinatown. Free Lance Missionary’s Worst Enemy Is Mayor Gaynor, Metropolitan Temple Audience Hears” (PDF), The New York Times, December 3, 1912
Landsberg, Brian K. (2004). Major Acts of Congress. Macmillan Reference USA: The Gale Group. pp. 251–253.
Kinkead, Eugene; Harold Wallace Ross (October 2, 1937). “Peace House”. The New Yorker. Retrieved December 2, 2013.
“Fears Gang Will Kill Her. Miss Livingston Says $500 Has Been Offered for Her Death”, The New York Times, January 8, 1914
“Chinatown is Still Oriental, Haunting”. The Post-Crescent. November 21, 1950. p. 13. Retrieved March 12, 2020 – via newspapers.com (clipping).

~~~~

ROSE E. LIVINGSTON TO JANE ADDAMS, 1912[vi]

Rose writes to Jane Addams about her article on white slavery, because she herself is working in the Chinatown area of New York City working to help women get out of prostitution.

Dear Miss Addams

Pardon me for writing to you but have been reading Nov Magazine about the white slavery you wrote. I feel my heart go out to every woman that is fighting against this great evil. I have been shut up for 10 long years in China Town NY, and this coming March 4 will be 9 years since I have been out serving God, and doing [page 2] missionary work for God. last year with God help have got 29 young girls out from China Town girls from 10 years old to 17. hope if God willing someday I may see you, and tell you of the work I am doing and all about how God has keep me true for 9 years.

God bless you in your fight for the young girls. [page 3]

Yours in God work.

Miss R E Livingston.

49 Greenwich Ave

NY City.

“In the United States during the 19th and early 20th centuries, “white slavery” was the term used for sexual slavery. It was not a phrase indicative of race, but simply referred to the practice of organized coercion of unwilling persons into prostitution. Any race could be forced into white slavery, although of main concern were White women. Any race could also be a “white slaver” (i.e., slave holder or master); however, Eastern European Jews and Chinese immigrants were often singled out to be the most likely suspects.”[vii]

For the “historical context of interventions with sex workers in New York City during the Progressive Era (1890–1920)” read Saving Young Girls from Chinatown: White Slavery and Woman Suffrage, 1910-1920

~~~~

If one is “severely beaten, shot, wounded, and thrown out windows” as happened to Rose during her rescues, the natural inclination would be to return evil with evil. Isn’t that the premise of all revenge movies and of most so-called “social justice”? But Rose took on the challenge to not allow herself to be overcome by evil and become evil. She responded to evil as a force of good, as the “Angel of Chinatown”.

Take care not to despise one of these little ones. I tell you this: in heaven, their angels are always gazing on the face of my father who lives there.
Jesus, Matthew 18: 10

I considered writing a condensed version of Rose’s life. But would readers skim through and move on to the next thing? Her life and times deserve our full attention, especially in light of Biden’s open-border invasion of our country and the human-trafficking it enables via the cartels, coyotes, and on-the- government-dole NGOs. Democrats and globalists have a demand for trafficked humans.

Please consider reading the newspaper clippings referenced in the links above. With them you’ll get a sense of the times and of Rose – her dealings with the denizens of darkness, her valiant rescues, and her self-sacrifice to save young women from hell on earth. Hers is not a Hallmark made-for-TV life.

Likewise, what was depicted in the Sound of Freedom was not about providing a short-term emotional ride and then release. It was about joining the fight to stop child trafficking and children being sold into sex slavery.

For disciples of Jesus, Rose’s Christ-like nature deserves the greatest attention. Hers is a life not only to behold but as an example to follow. For, it is the way of life in Christ Jesus as the Apostle Paul states:

We are under all kinds of pressure, but we are not crushed completely; we are at a loss, but not at our wit’s end; we are persecuted, but not abandoned; we are cast down, but not destroyed. We always carry the deadness of Jesus about in the body, so that the life of Jesus may be revealed in our body. Although we are still alive, you see, we are always being given over to death because of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may be revealed in our mortal humanity. So this is how it is: death is at work in us – but life in you!
The apostle Paul, 2 Corinthians 4:8-12

~~~~~

Do not be deceived. There is no climate crisis. There IS a child trafficking crisis. The open border is a human trafficking situation.

Unaccompanied minors crossing the U.S. border each year present among the most worrying challenges in America’s response to [illegal] migration, with reports showing a recent rise in apprehensions of children, and criticism that the White House has violated providing legal protections for them.

Under Joe Biden, Have 85,000 Undocumented Children Gone ‘Missing’? (newsweek.com)

Who are the sponsors? Are they background checked?

As record numbers of migrants continue to enter the United States from Mexico, border authorities are also seeing higher numbers of minors traveling without a legal guardian. In response to the surge in unaccompanied youth, the Biden administration is releasing children to sponsors in an average of 28 days. Prospective hosts can fill out their paperwork remotely and case workers rarely visit their home. Officials are required to follow up with the child via a phone call one month later.

Between 2021 and 2022, 85,000 unaccompanied children—one third of children released to sponsors in the United States—didn’t pick up the phone. The government is unable to account for their whereabouts or welfare. Following a congressional hearing last April, Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., demanded the FBI locate the “missing children.”

Are thousands of immigrant children missing in the United… | WORLD (wng.org)

The Supreme Court’s recent unconstitutional response to states protecting themselves shows the direction this country is headed – towards lawlessness, anarchy, and civil war.

Behind The Rescue in The Sound of Freedom, Paul’s Mission to Eradicate Child Trafficking.

In this special episode of Liberating Humanity, host Paul Hutchinson takes us behind the scenes of the movie “The Sound of Freedom.” Join him as he shares the real-life story behind the film, recounting his firsthand experiences on a daring undercover mission to rescue children from human traffickers in Colombia. As an expert in investigative journalism and true crime, Paul sheds light on the shocking reality of child trafficking, emphasizing the importance of combatting this global crisis through organizations like the Child Liberation Foundation and the Sentinel Foundation. Discover the inspiring journey of hope, bravery, and the relentless pursuit of justice in the fight against child exploitation. Let’s unite to make a difference and protect the most vulnerable among us.

Behind The Rescue in The Sound of Freedom, Pauls Mission to Eradicate Child Trafficking – Mountain (liberating-humanity.com)

Behind The Rescue in The Sound of Freedom, Paul’s Mission to Eradicate Child Trafficking

~~~~~

Sound of Freedom [Official Trailer] (youtube.com)

[i] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:How_Rose_Livingston_Works_In_Chinatown.png

[ii] Michelle Shocklee, https://www.hhhistory.com/2021/04/rose-livingston-angel-of-chinatown.html

[iii] Livingston, Rose E. (1876?-1975) · Jane Addams Digital Edition (ramapo.edu)

[iv] Smolak A. White slavery, whorehouse riots, venereal disease, and saving women: historical context of prostitution interventions and harm reduction in New York City during the Progressive Era. Soc Work Public Health. 2013;28(5):496-508. doi: 10.1080/19371918.2011.592083. PMID: 23805804; PMCID: PMC3703872.; https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3703872/

[v] https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Rose_Livingston

[vi] https://www.digital.janeaddams.ramapo.edu/items/show/3741

[vii] Saving Young Girls from Chinatown: White Slavery and Woman Suffrage, 1910-1920

Filed under 2024 Current Events, Christianity, History, human trafficking, Women's History Tagged with child predation, Christianity, human trafficking, Jeffrey Epstein, open border, Paul Hutchinson, prostitution, Rose E. Livingston, sex slavery, Sound of Freedom, White slavery

Suppression

April 8, 2023 Leave a comment

If you had lived in the Roman-occupied Holy Land in 4 BC, you would have known about the Roman general Varus who crushed a Jewish revolt against the Roman authority. The causes of that revolt and later revolts stemmed from several factors: the cruelty and corruption of the Roman leaders, Jewish religious nationalism, the impoverishment of the Jewish peasantry, and the corrupt priesthood class.

Varus sent a part of his army into the country, against those that had been the authors of this commotion, and as they caught great numbers of them, those that appeared to have been the least concerned in these tumults he put into custody, but such as were the most guilty he crucified; these were in number about two thousand. War 2.66-79, Josephus (Emphasis mine.)

Mass crucifixions continued in the first century.

“. . . given that crucifixion was seen as an extremely shameful way to die, Rome tended not to crucify its own citizens. Instead, slaves, disgraced soldiers, Christians, foreigners, and — in particular — political activists often lost their lives in this way.”

Jesus wasn’t the only man to be crucified. Here’s the history behind this brutal practice. | Live Science

4 BC is a time of violent suppression under an unyielding Roman rule. If you said something and acted against that rule, you were crucified to keep order under Roman rule. If you said nothing and lived with the oppression then you were quick to point fingers to keep order for yourselves under Roman rule.

“the citizens received [Jarus] and cleared themselves of having any hand in this revolt, and said that they had raised no commotions, but had only been forced to admit the multitude, because of the festival, and that they were rather besieged together with the Romans, than assisted those that had revolted.” War 2.73, Josephus

We don’t know the exact year of Jesus’ birth. Most scholars go with 4 BC.

*****

Mark’s gospel account opens with John the Baptist clearing the way for Jesus with baptisms of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. The account immediately turns to Jesus and the start of his ministry. We then read of a growing following and of eye-witnessed accounts about unclean spirts being cast out, the sick being healed, and a dead twelve-year old girl being raised to life. And, we learn of Jesus’ words and their impact on local communities as they were heard in the synagogue.

Jesus’s teaching was met with astonishment (Mk. 1:22): “he wasn’t like the legal teachers; he says things on his own authority”.

Later, when Jesus returned to his home region for a time and on the sabbath taught in the synagogue, his words were again met with astonishment (Mk. 6:2). And also, with consternation.

“Where does he get it all from?” they said. “What’s this wisdom he’s been given? How does he get this kind of power in his hands? Isn’t he the handyman, Mary’s son? Isn’t he the brother of James, Joses, Judah and Simon? And aren’t his sisters here with us?” They took offense at him. (Mk. 6:1-3)

Then we read that Jesus “couldn’t do any remarkable thing there, except he laid hands on a few sick people and cured them. Their unbelief dumbfounded him”. (Mk. 6: 5-6)

Earlier in the gospel account, Jesus’ relatives, hearing about the growing crowds and excitement surrounding Jesus, came to restrain him. “He’s out of his mind,” they said (Mk. 3:21). Experts from Jerusalem also showed up and tried to discredit him, labeling the source of Jesus’ power as demonic. Jesus dealt with them in no uncertain terms (Mk.3: 22-27).

In these accounts we see the attempted suppression of Jesus by his family, his community and by religious authorities. His family dubs him crazy and tries to rein him in from bringing more unwanted attention to them. His hometown community takes offense, perhaps thinking “You are uppity talking like that, saying things on your own authority. You’re one of us. Get with the program. Don’t make waves. Fit in and makes us happy that we can be around you.” The religious authorities started a smear campaign.

Undoubtedly, the locals feared antagonizing Roman authorities which could then lead to arrest and possible crucifixion. And just as undoubtedly, the religious leaders from Jerusalem, mediators between Rome and the Jewish population, wanted to keep the peace and their positions. They feared a newcomer, extraordinary in word and deed, upsetting their apple cart. They began a program of misinformation about Jesus.

The push to silence and discredit Jesus and his astonishing words and deeds led to unbelief that conformed to the world around. And that led to the suppression of the remarkable in Jesus’ local community.

*****

Right after this, in Mark chapter 6, we read that Jesus goes around to villages teaching. Suppression tactics do not stop his kingdom work. Jesus sends out the Twelve in pairs to expand his ministry. The twelve were chosen for this reason (Mk. 3:13-14).

“They went off and announced that people should repent. They cast out several demons; and they anointed many sick people with oil, and cured them.” (Mk. 6:12-13).

And then we read that Jesus’ name became well know and reached the ears of the King (Mk.6: 14).

(This king, Herod Antipas, tetrarch of Galilee, was the son and a successor of Herod the Great the Roman client king of Judea until his death in 4 BC. And though Herod the Great had a religion of Second Temple Judaism, he lived with extreme paranoia that resulted in terror:

Herod the Great was a brutal man who killed his father-in-law, several of his ten wives, and two of his sons. He ignored the laws of God to suit himself and chose the favor of Rome over his own people. Herod’s heavy taxes to pay for lavish projects forced an unfair burden on the Jewish citizens.)

When Herod Antipas heard about Jesus he said “It’s John the Baptist, risen from the dead! That’s why these powers are at work in him.” (Mk. 6:14).

Mark goes on to relate what happened to John the Baptist:

“Herod had married Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife. John regularly told Herod it wasn’t right for him to take his brother’s wife; so, Herod gave the word, arrested him, and tied him up in prison.” (Mk.6:17-18).

Herodias, not at all happy with John saying these things, wanted him dead, but Herod wouldn’t let that happen. Herod was afraid of John because he considered John “a just and holy man”. And, Herod would come down to John’s cell and listen to him talk. “What he heard disturbed him greatly, and yet he enjoyed listening to him” (Mk.6: 20).

Now, you know the story of Herod’s birthday and the great party attended by his supporters, military officers and the great and good of Galilee. Herodias’s daughter dances and wows the crowd and the birthday boy. What Herod saw moved him greatly. He enjoyed watching her dance. So, he offers to give the girl a gift to match the wow of her dance.

When Herod hears the girl’s gift request, he becomes panic-stricken, perhaps thinking “This is a holy man. You don’t mess with that. People like him you keep around and under control . . . and there goes the one voice that moved me to distraction.

Herod had made oaths to give her a wow gift in front of his guests. And, “He hadn’t the guts to refuse her” (Mk.6:26). So, John was beheaded.

In this account we read of suppression of John the Baptist on account of what he was saying in public. He was locked up to control the PR surrounding Herod’s immoral marriage to his brother’s wife Herodias. In jail, John didn’t remain silent. And Herod, whose father Herod the Great was into Second Temple Judaism, thought the abrasive John a curious figure to be observed, perhaps like a woman’s sensual dance.

Herod hears about Jesus doing astonishing things and that he’s a just and holy man. He reckons John the Baptist has been resurrected. (Now what have I done?”)

*****

“Two particular details about Roman crucifixion are of special interest to us in this book. First, it would not be much of an exaggeration to say that Jesus of Nazareth grew up under the shadow of the cross…The Galilee of Jesus’ boyhood, then, all knew about Roman crosses (Antiquities 17.286-98; War 2.66-79)…When he told his followers to pick up their crosses and follow him, they would not have heard this as a metaphor…The second point of special interest for us is the way in which the Romans sometimes used crucifixion as a way of mocking a victim with social or political pretensions. “You want to be high and lifted up?” they said in effect. “All right, we’ll give you ‘high and lifted up.’” Crucifixion thus meant not only killing by slow torture, not only shaming, not only issuing a warning, but also parodying the ambitions of the uppity rebels. They wanted to be move up the social scale? Let them be lifted up above the common herd…”

-from the chapter The Cross in Its First-Century Setting, N.T. Wright’s The Day the Revolution

*****

Psychology defines suppression as pushing unwanted thoughts, emotions, memories, fantasies, and more out of conscious awareness so that you’re not thinking of these things anymore.

In 4 BC terms, suppression would include dealing with people who are seen as a threat to the system and who annoy and make certain people feel uncomfortable. Such people were mocked, scourged, and put on display for the public’s conscious awareness.

Forms of suppression from 4 BC to the present have included public derision, impalement, death by burning, crucifixion, labeling, canceling, shadow banning, blocking, misinformation campaigns, repeating lies, criminalizing dissent, fines, gag orders, persecution, false charges, arrest, and imprisonment.

What makes the world godless and by what means?

Suppressing the existing facts of reality and the established facts of truth makes the world godless.

In your search for truth . . .

Does your theology suppress science so you don’t have to deal with thinking about science?

Does your science suppress any thought of God so you don’t have to deal with messy, uncomfortable thoughts and emotions?

Does your political view suppress facts as long as there are enough people going along with lies and half-truths?

Is crucifixion the ultimate suppression?

No. See the empty tomb. Unbelief is the ultimate suppression.

*****

This Easter Please Remember The Jan 6ers and Their Families Who Have Been Severely Abused by Federal Judges in Washington DC | The Gateway Pundit | by Joe Hoft

The Easter Please Remember Mathew Perna and All of the Men and Women Persecuted by the Biden DOJ from Jan 6 | The Gateway Pundit | by Joe Hoft

El Salvador’s President . . .

*****

Filed under 2023 current events, Christianity, Easter, Good Friday, History Tagged with Christianity, Easter, Good Friday, history, Oppression, persecution

‘determined to ‘do her bit’

September 11, 2022 Leave a comment

We now turn from the worst to the worthy. From the spectacle of the worst speech ever given by the worst public figure ever and from one who does not care about the American people to remembering a public figure devoted to her people and worthy of respect. We turn from a figurehead of confusion, of conformity to confusion and of coercion to conformity to a figurehead of depth, of dignity, and of the “democracy of the dead” – Queen Elizabeth II.

When I think of Queen Elizabeth, I think history: the 96 years of her embodied history and of our mother country’s history. And while some today dismiss history for preferred dining guests, aka “end of history” narratives, the narrative of history should have a permanent place at the table.

A few years ago, I picked up a book about English history. I found it to be a fascinating dinner guest and fellow passenger on the train. Reading about the English characters described, I learned of their folly and foibles, of their wise choices and their foolish ways, of their mark on history which effects today. One paragraph that Chesterton’s words above later echoes is especially meaningful to my own conservative understanding.

The following is a quote from the somewhat cheeky English History made Brief, Irreverent, and Pleasurable by Lacey Baldwin Smith.

[Tories] were the party of Edmund Burke, having a deep respect for the sanctity of history and believing that government was “a partnership between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are yest to be born.” . . . they preached Britain’s manifest destiny as the world’s greatest Empire, took up the paternalistic cause of the common man, and changed their name to the Conservative Party.

I returned to the book when I heard the news of the Queen’s passing. The book’s back cover states “The guiding principle of this book’s heretical approach is that “history is not everything that happened, but what is worth remembering about the past. . ..”. Thus, its chapters deal mainly with “Memorable History” in blocks of time over the centuries. The final chapter “The Royal Soap Opera,” recounts the achievements, personalities and idiocies of the royal family since the arrival of William the Conqueror in 1066.

The final section in The Royal Soap Opera is titled Elizabeth II (1952–) begins . . . Elizabeth came to the throne in a “blaze of glorious technicolor.” Queen Elizabeth II was the first television queen. The world began to see the “historic grandeur of royal pageantry”. But, of course, when media gets involved, all of the royal family’s foibles, failures and fractures are laid bare for the world to see. Thru all of “The Royal Soap Opera” Queen Elizabeth II symbolized the good, the stalwart, the faithful. She remained the rock of Gibraltar and a reference point for the far afloat royal misfits. (Please let me know if you know any such female public figure today.)

Elizabeth Alexandra Mary, born on April 21st 1926, ascended to the throne on February 6^th of 1952. Elizabeth was crowned on June 2nd 1953.

Today, we have ‘princesses’ who demand that government and others treat them royally. Princess Elizabeth, ‘determined to ‘do her bit’ was no such princess. She was “Princess auto-Mechanic” during WWII:

When the news broke that the Queen had passed, history became relevant again. Mini-histories have been presented in the media. Here’s one of the best historical perspectives:

Another reflection, regarding fame, slavery:

Give Tribute to Whom Tribute is Due

****

Scenes from the media coverage of the Queen’s passing brought back memories . . .

1977. The Queen’s Silver Jubilee was celebrated throughout the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth. Elizabeth ascended to the throne 25 years before.

Having ascended to the age of 25 and wanting to see the world, I traveled to England that summer with a long-time neighborhood friend. As I recall, my friend found us a travel package – airfare, transfers, hotel, tours, dinner playhouse tickets – for $750.00 each. The trip lasted ten days.

We landed at Heathrow. The tour bus drove us to a hotel in Kensington where we stayed. The things we noticed along the way: dreary weather, green everywhere, black cabs and red double-decker buses. London was decked out with Jubilee banners. The Queens’ picture was everywhere. Souvenir shops displayed all kinds of celebratory curios.

One of the first things planned for our tour group was a pub crawl in London. I remember drinking a lot of shandy and warm pints and playing darts. Our tour group would later visit Stonehenge, Bath, Stratford-on-Avon, and Buckingham Palace to see the changing of the guard. (The Queen, of course, was busy with Jubilee preparations, so, the two of us weren’t invited in.)

We gazed on Windsor Castle from a distance and got a closeup view of Winston Churchill’s gravesite. The tour guide had given the tour group a choice: visit Churchill’s gravesite or go to Oxford. I was the only one to raise my hand for Oxford. I figured Churchill wasn’t going anywhere soon.

We attended a West London show – The Mousetrap. Afterward, we were treated to a typical English dinner of roasted meat, mashed potatoes, vegetables, stuffing, Yorkshire puddings and gravy.

As mentioned, our hotel was in Kensington. On our time off, my friend and I rode the tubes and took in St. James Park, the Mall, Hyde Park Corner, parts of Soho, Trafalgar Square, Piccadilly Circus, Tower Bridge, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, and Parliament. We did it all and without Rick Steves.

A jolly good time.

****

Where are the serious people? Time to choose.

This . . .

Princess (later Queen ) Elizabeth of Great Britain doing technical repair work during her World war two military service 1944. (Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

Or This . . .

And this, the sorry individuals who are unable to contemplate anything but their navel:

Informed Dissent:

Wait! What? I thought the world is going to end anytime now!

1200 scientist and scholars say ‘There is no climate emergency.”

The World Climate Declaration warns that climate science “should be less political, while climate policies should be more scientific.”

“Scientists should openly address uncertainties and exaggerations in their predictions of global warming, while politicians should dispassionately count the real costs as well as the imagined benefits of their policy measures,” the declaration reads.

“We should free ourselves from the naïve belief in immature climate models,” the WCD states.

world-climate-declaration-version-06272215121 Download

O Canada:

https://youtu.be/7ZnsaxllDNk

O Illinois:

The Safe-T Act?

The so-called SAFE-T Act would end cash bail and includes 12 non-detainable offences, second-degree murder, aggravated battery and arson without bail, as well as drug-induced homicide, kidnapping, burglary, robbery, intimidation, aggravated DUI, aggravated fleeing and eluding, drug offences and threatening a public official.

Illinois law will release those charged with second-degree murder without bail – The Counter Signal

Orland Park’s mayor:

O Virginia:

“ . . . seventeen other states have previously tied their vehicle emission standards to emissions standards set by California. Now the press is playing that fact as if these states have a choice; that they must “decide” whether to follow California’s strict new rules. That is, all new cars must be electric by 2025.

But in many states, they really don’t have a choice. Because their state legislators have passed laws tying their own state emissions standards to whatever California does. It is very difficult to rescind existing law, and it may prove to be an impossibility. This is the case in Virginia, where I live. The Democratic Virginia legislature quietly tied the state’s emissions standards to California’s in 2021. Governor Youngkin is vowing to change this law, but rescinding a law is generally harder than actually passing one. This will require legislative involvement, in a state whereby the legislative body is essentially split between the two parties.”

Never Let a Good Crisis Go to Waste (substack.com)

The WTF WEF:

1958 book explains the current destruction of America by Communism. For example:

Step 17: “Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers’ associations. Put the party line in textbooks.”

Step 25: “Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.”

#284 – The naked Communist, by W. Cleon Skousen. – Full View | HathiTrust Digital Library

Jason Whitlock Tells it like it is, Kari Lake Joins

Rise of the Fourth Reich. Trials and Executions. Nuremberg 2.0. Steve Deace, Julie Kelly. (podbean.com)

Filed under 2022 current events, great women, History Tagged with great women, history, Joe Biden, Queen Elizabeth II

The Antique Shop

July 19, 2020 Leave a comment

On a street known as Artifact Row, in the historic district of Langford, D&D Antiques offered vintage collectibles. The owners, Dale and Doris, lived in the small apartment above the shop.

Per the rules of the town’s preservation committee, the shops and cafés of Artifact Row were required to maintain their 19^th century façades. During the summer months, the lattice ironwork of the display windows and the frame of the double doors into D&Ds were coated with layers of black paint to keep them from oxidizing. Next to D&Ds, the Reitz Artifact Gallery, specializing in graphic arts, antiquarian maps and atlases, repainted its ironwork verdigris green and installed a new awning. On the other side of D&Ds, the wood framed windows and door of Dunwoody’s Furniture Restoration were repainted with a fresh coat of terra beige and brown.

Above D&D’s recessed doors were two transoms which, when lowered, gave the appearance with the doors of being the door’s black eyebrows. And above the transoms was a weathered green signboard with gold letters:

D&D Antiques

Things both Excellent and Rare

The shop’s windows displayed objects collected by Doris from estate sales. On exhibit, a menagerie of items passed down through generations of families including pottery, porcelains, vases, silver platters, a Tiffany lamp, jewelry, spelter candlesticks, figurines, watch fobs and watches, photographs and, postcards. A small banner with a gold star on a red and white field hung in the recessed window next to the door. Above it, a sign posting the shop’s hours. Beneath, a detachment of smartly uniformed nutcrackers that appeared to be standing guard at the door.

The shop now offered consignment, as Things both Excellent and Rare were no longer collected by Doris. A gaunt figure in her eighties, called a flower with a delicate stem by Dale, Doris could no longer attend estate sales. Her knees had become feeble, her gait wobbly, her strength gone. Dale noticed, too, that her mind had become wobbly. Doris no longer knew who he was. So, for a time, she remained with Dale in the shop.

During her days in the shop, Doris would sit listless in the spool-turned rocker. At times she would get up, hobble around and pick up pieces on display. She held them to her ear, as one would do with a sea shell at the beach. A dulcet smile would then appear on her face.

During fifty-five years of marriage, the two had worked hand in hand. Yet a time came to keep Doris upstairs. No longer active, Doris had grown weaker. Dale, also in his eighties, frail and hunched-over, could no longer help his wife up and down the apartment stairs. In the days that followed and at regular intervals, Dale would hang a “BACK IN TEN MINUTES” sign on his door. He would head up the shop’s adjoining stairs to their apartment to care for Doris, where she sat in her arm chair with a vacant stare.

On any given day, except on Mondays when the shop was closed, D&Ds was visited by women poring over each item and husbands who listened to Dale as he regaled them with his stories from his time in the Navy. The children who came along were directed to a corner of the store. There, Dale had set a small table, two chairs and a globe. On the table, Dale’s loose-leafed stamp albums. The children were enchanted by the colorful stamps Dale had collected from around the world. At Dale’s suggestion, they swirled the globe looking for each stamp’s country of origination.

It was now Sunday evening. The ageless sounding chimes of the grandfather clock and the sudden “koo-koo” of the Black Forest clock announced six-o’clock. It was time to close the shop. As was his habit, Dale placed the cash drawer and the antique jewelry in a safe. The coffee was shut off. The back door checked. The model train was shut off. The three weights of the grandfather clock were rehung. And, the two streetside lamps that shown down on the face of the shop were switched on.

After one last look around, Dale turned the door sign from “OPEN” TO “CLOSED” and stepped outside into stifling heat of the August night. As he turned the key in the lock, he noticed a thunderous commotion behind him. He looked around. Up and down the Row passersby stopped at window displays. Shoppers walked out of the closing shops. The tremendous clamor, clashes of curses and bellowing voices, seemed to come from the next street east. “Something is in the offing,” Dale thought. “There must be some confusion about the hour.” Tired, Dale trudged up the adjoining stairs.

11:10 and the shop was still. The inconsonant tickticktick of three mantel clocks the only sound.

11:11. The grandfather clock began a sonorous toll. The cuckoo exited with loud rousing “koo-koos”. The conversation began again.

“Let us use our time wisely,” came the booming voice of the grandfather clock.

“Here one minute. Gone the next,” chirped the cuckoo.

“What? We sit here, day after day. Nothing changes,” moaned the mantel clock.

“I do have my ups and downs,” noted the barometer.

“It’s all the same,” sighed the depression glass.

“But we’re not the same,” countered the silver chalice. “Some of us have a higher station in life.”

“I was tops in my class,” said masthead light.

“But I summoned the attention of all,” said the ship’s bell.

“No. It was I,” said the bosun’s pipe.

“I held the compass,” said the binnacle proudly.

“But you are not me,” said the compass. “I gave directions.”

“I was the admiral’s go to,” said the brass ship’s wheel.

“You couldn’t go anywhere without me,” replied the rudder.

“You don’t know the time of day,” replied the ship’s clock.

“I’m getting sea sick,” growled the gyroscope.

“Boys. Boys. Don’t make waves,” admonished the sextant. “Know your place.”

“It’s all the same. Night after night.” groaned the glass.

“But we aren’t!” said the painting pointedly.

“We are!” declared the silverware.

“We aren’t”, squealed the Chantilly porcelain terrine.

“We are. We aren’t,” the rocker hemmed and hawed.

“Things are heating up again,” the fireplace poker jabbed. “Just the way I like it.”

“You’re always stirring things up,” jabbed the ivory letter opener.

“Can’t we all just get along,” the fine china clattered.

“Let’s have a party,” the silver platter prompted.

“Yes, let’s!” shouted the silverware.

“It’s all the same.”

“We’re not the same.”

“The same. Not the same. The same. Not the same,” choo-choo-ed the tinplate model train.

“At least I don’t go around in circles all day,” remarked the rubber stamp.

“No. You just sit there with ink on your face,” countered the train.

“Don’t rub it in,” the stamp came back.

“Now we’re getting somewhere!” pounced the Murano glass paperweight.

“Look who’s talking,” remarked the art nouveau hand mirror.

“It’s all the same.”

“We’re not the same.”

“We are. We aren’t.”

“The same, Not the same. The same. Not the same.”

“I could shed some light on this,” laughed the Tiffany lamp.

“You’re not plugged in,” the flat iron spoke frankly.

“And neither are you,” countered the candlestick holder.

“You can’t hold a candle to me,” bragged the wash basin

“Keep a lid on it,” the tea pot protested.

“I’m with her,” tittered the tea cup

“Those who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones,” snorted the spittoon.

“Have you no taste? I am fine china!”

“Have some decorum,” pleaded the painting.

Tickticktick Tickticktick Tickticktick.

“Bor…ring. I’ve more important things to do,” brayed the brass bugle.

“He’s always blowing his own horn,” a nutcracker noted.

“It’s all the same.”

“You need to change your worldview,” the globe giggled.

“Get a hobby,” snickered the stamp album.

“The same, Not the same. The same. Not the same.”

“Let’s change the subject,” broached the book. “I am a first edition.”

“But I was here first!” shouted the Louis the XVI chair.

“And consigned to the dust bin of history,” scoffed the newly arrived brooch.

“I did not know you had come, and I shall not miss you when you go away,” replied the chair.

“I have served wine to kings and queens,” said the goblet. “I deserve better company.”

“Mais oui, bien sûr,“ came back the chair. “As do I.”

“Those two are broken records,” the gramophone pointed out.

“I am above all that,” said the annoyed candelabra. “I have looked down on royalty and heads of state.”

Not to be overlooked, the Victorian sewing table said proudly, “Not what I have but what I do is my kingdom.”

“Let’s face it. It’s all about me,” the cameo came back.

“You’re just another face in the crowd,” the mirror mocked.

“The lady picked me up. Held me to her ear.”

“And what did you tell her?” queried the quartz watch.

“If it’s true it’s not new.”

“Are you a philosopher now?” wondered the Wedgewood vase.

“Though Truth and Falsehood be Near twins, yet Truth a little elder is,” recited the limited-edition poetry book with a flourish.

“It’s all the same.”

“We’re not the same.”

“We are. We aren’t.”

“Well, you are all waiting,” remarked the rubber stamp.

“Waiting for what?” asked the tintype.

“Waiting to be taken to a home,” cooed the wood doll.

“Home is where the heart is,” replied the postcard.

“You’re just ephemera. Here today. Gone tomorrow,” tut-ted the dressing table.

“You have no utility,” snarked the silver platter.

“I’m a keepsake. A reminder of times past,” the postcard said proudly.

“What you are is what you have been. What you’ll be is what you do now,” exhorted the jade Buddha.

“Right on!” shouted the mantel clock.

“Progress!” The cuckoo poked his head out.

“Revolution!” fired off the fireplace poker.

“Diversity!” yelled the stamp album.

“Equality!” exclaimed the stamps in unison.

“Solidarity!” cried the flat iron.

“Can’t we all get along?” pleaded the fine china. “We can all serve humanity.”

“Hear! Hear! Shouted the silverware.

“Keep it together,” begged the bookends.

“It’s all the same.”

“We’re not the same.”

“We are. We aren’t.”

Tickticktick Tickticktick Tickticktick.

2 AM. Grandfather tolled and the cuckoo called. A loud crash.

“What was that?” questioned the quilt.

“A torch,” said one of the nutcrackers.

“I’ve seen this before,” said the fireplace poker.

“What’s it for?” wondered the watch.

“A torch is for light,” said the candlestick holder.

“But why is it on the floor?” asked the Oriental rug anxiously.

“Perhaps it is to be sold,” speculated the rubber stamp.

“I’ve read about this sort of thing,” stated the first edition. “It doesn’t bode well.”

“Some say the world will end in fire … Some say in ice,” warned the poetry book.

“The fire is coming closer,” fretted the lute.

“Shouldn’t it be on a candleholder where it belongs,” asked the candlestick holder.

“Fire goes where it goes,” replied the fireplace poker.

“It’s going up my leg,” said the Louis the XVI chair.

“How does it feel Mr. High and Mighty?” asked the rubber stamp.

“It feels … ohhhhh …familiar, …! …. like searing passion and raging anger.” The chair tried to maintain composed, but, “… now, ow! Ow! OW! …je suis d’histoire!. Aurevoir à mes amis.” The chair toppled down.

“What shall we do?” roared the rocker engulfed in flames.

“Maybe the shopkeeper will come,” said the cameo.

“Bugle do something,” shouted a nutcracker, his ranks now diminished.

The bugle, overcome by smoke, sputtered and coughed, “splurrrrtttt ….cuh cuh ….cuh cuh …someone get me some AIRrrrrrr …!”

“If I only had water,” said the basin.

“If only someone had taken us home,” cried the postcard.

The mirror, enamored by its reflection, proudly stated, “Look at the light I am reflecting. The whole room is lit up.”

“Don’t you see what is happening?” rasped the rocker. “We are being consumed!”

“I’ve done my job,” replied the mirror.

“I want out!” cried the postcard, the flames edging up his sides.

“We’re all in this together,” wheezed the stamp album with its last breath. The conversation ended.

3 AM. There was no ageless sounding toll and no sudden “koo-koo”. The second story had collapsed.

(aka, Lena de Vries)

Filed under History, Short Story Tagged with history, short story

Manipulated to Follow the Course of This World

July 28, 2019 Leave a comment

There is a passage in C. S. Lewis’ novel That Hideous Strength (published in 1945) that foreshadows the media manipulation going on today. I’ll begin with some background from my post Genealogies of Straw?

The narrator in C.S. Lewis’ Space Trilogy novel That Hideous Strength tells us about one of the central characters Mark Studdock. He is a young academic, a sociologist, and a member of the Progressive Element at Bracton College. He is an ambitious, self-centered and shallow intellectual who has come into the service of the National Institute of Coordinated Sciences (NICE). He believes NICE will serve the best interest of humanity through progress at any cost. Once he stopped hemming and hawing about joining the organization he is welcomed into the inner circle. But he soon finds that he has committed himself to a hellish organization which plans to re-do humanity by force so that only the best humans (in NICE’s view) remain. He is made aware that the tentacles of the organization are growing.

Before the passage I quote below we learn that Mark is pressured to write newspaper articles that conceal what N.I.C.E. is up to. At one point he questions Miss Hardcastle, the sadistic leader of the N.I.C.E.’s corrupt police force, about which newspaper – “Left or Right” –is going to print the “rot” he is being asked to write. Miss Hardcastle answers.

“Both, honey, both,” said Miss Hardcastle. “Don’t you understand anything? Isn’t it absolutely essential to keep a fierce Left and a fierce Right, both on their toes and terrified of each other? That’s how we get things done. Any opposition to the N.I.C.E. is represented as a Left racket in the Right papers and a Right racket in the Left papers. If it’s properly done, you get each side outbidding the other in support of us – to refute enemy slanders. Of course we’re non-political. The real power always is.”

“I don’t believe you can do that,” said Mark. “Not with the papers that are read by educated people.”

“That shows you are still in the nursery, lovey,” said Miss Hardcastle. “Haven’t you realized that it’s the other way around?”

“How do you mean?”

“Why you fool, it’s the educated reader who can be gulled. All our difficulty comes with others. When did you meet a workman who believes the papers? He takes for granted that they’re all propaganda and skips the leading articles. He buys his paper for the football results and the little paragraphs about girls falling out of windows and corpses found in the Mayfair flats. He is our problem. We have to recondition him. But the educated public, the people who read the high-brow weeklies, don’t need reconditioning. They’re all right already. They’ll believe anything.”

Mark, the academic sociologist, balks at such an inference. And Hardcastle responds “…Don’t you see that the educated reader can’t stop reading the high-brow weeklies whatever they do? He can’t. He’s been conditioned.”

Anyone who spends time reading and watching the media, and I presume a large portion of the population here in the U.S does., is susceptible to its manipulation. Is this news to anyone? TV commercials and internet popup adverts are created to manipulate the viewer and reader to go after what is being offered, or to at least carry a jingle and a phone number and an image around in their head. Subliminal manipulation is used constantly to sway thinking.

Similar manipulative influence is used by Progressive Element’s TV news/political opinion programs and on its news and opinion websites where news is swapped for narrative. The talking heads of these shows and websites hope to affix their narrative in the minds of the viewer and reader with an endless repetition of lies, innuendos, slander, and charged words: “Racist!” Sexist!” “Homophobe!” “Islamophobe!” “Nazi!”. These words are intended to produce hate for the ‘enemies’ of the Progressive Element’s agenda. It induces an effect on the viewer and reader not unlike those who take part in INGSOC’s Two Minutes Hate as described in George Orwell’s 1984 (published in 1949).

The Progressive Element’s desired outcome-based control of others using terror and ideological fiction is characteristic of totalitarianism. This manifestation of political evil is not new nor Progressive. It is characteristic of what came before as expressed by Hannah Arendt in her 1951 Origins of Totalitarianism. Arendt, a German-born American political scientist and philosopher wrote about the horrific events of her own day: the totalitarian regimes of Soviet Stalinism and the rise of Nazi Germany that brought about the annihilation of millions. Referring to the citizenry who allowed such horrors, Arendt found a “mixture of gullibility and cynicism… is prevalent in all ranks of totalitarian movements”. And, so was lying. Here are three quotes coming out of Hannah Arendt’s understanding of the forces at work during those times to de-legitimize truth and to de-humanize the hearer:

Why the constant, often blatant lying? For one thing, it functioned as a means of fully dominating subordinates, who would have to cast aside all their integrity to repeat outrageous falsehoods and would then be bound to the leader by shame and complicity.

In an ever-changing, incomprehensible world the masses had reached the point where they would, at the same time, believe everything and nothing, think that everything was possible and nothing was true… The totalitarian mass leaders based their propaganda on the correct psychological assumption that, under such conditions, one could make people believe the most fantastic statements one day, and trust that if the next day they were given irrefutable proof of their falsehood, they would take refuge in cynicism; instead of deserting the leaders who had lied to them, they would protest that they had known all along that the statement was a lie and would admire the leaders for their superior tactical cleverness.

The result of a consistent and total substitution of lies for factual truth is not that the lie will now be accepted as truth and truth be defamed as a lie, but that the sense by which we take our bearings in the real world—and the category of truth versus falsehood is among the mental means to this end—is being destroyed.

The talking head’s mocking and sneering of the ‘enemy’ is echoed in social media by the viewers of Sixty Minutes Hate. Internalized totalitarianism, often disguised as a push for social justice, demands control of the conversation, of people’s thoughts, of people’s behavior and of people’s property. With terror-mongering (e.g., “The world will end in 12 years if we don’t do something about climate change”; “Democracy will end if we don’t wrest control of it from those in power”) and with endless repetition one’s understanding of reality is swapped for the socially constructed reality. Shadow banning on social media sites is meant to keep opinions opposed to the Progressive Element’s agenda out of sight and mind.

Societal manipulation done by academics and the elites of the ruling class is used by totalitarian regimes (North Korea most notably today) to produce servitude to its agenda:

“Apart from the massacres, deaths and famines for which communism was responsible, the worst thing about the system was the official lying: that is to say the lying in which everyone was forced to take part, by repetition, assent or failure to contradict. I came to the conclusion that the purpose of propaganda in communist countries was not to persuade, much less to inform, but to humiliate and emasculate.”

― Anthony Daniels, The Wilder Shores Of Marx: Journeys In A Vanishing World

Big tech uses societal manipulation. Machine Learning Fairness algorithms are used by Google to put Google’s thumb on the scale of searches in order to skew search outcomes toward the social justice their narrative demands. Enter “Men can” and “Women can” into the Google home page and see what immediately shows up. Men are portrayed negatively or neutral and even as being able to have babies. Women are shown as compassionate and as powerful corporate and civic leaders – positively. One can imagine what Google’s Machine Learning Fairness algorithm does to skew political and cultural (the LGBTQ in particular) searches.

No matter where you lie on the political spectrum you will want to listen to the video and read the research of Dr. Robert Epstein, Why Google Poses a Serious Threat to Democracy, and How to End That Threat. Beyond newspapers, you and I are being manipulated by the princes of the power of the air – Big Tech. Dr. Epstein stated at the senate community hearing that Google’s manipulation affected a range of a minimum of 2.6 million to 10.4 million votes in favor of Hillary Clinton.

Liberal Professor Warns: Google Manipulating Voters ‘on a Massive Scale’

You can be sure that what comes out of Hollywood is societal manipulation. The entertainment you watch is manipulated. You are taking in pagan and Progressive notions of life meant to shape your world view. One example: 7 Moments That Made ‘Frozen’ the Most Progressive Disney Movie Ever

Because of the incessant and ubiquitous manipulation impelling one to follow the course of this world, because the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience (Eph. 2:1-3) to produce hatred, vindictiveness, greed and a lust for power, a follower of Christ must set their mind on things above (Col. 3:1-2) to gain their bearings in this world. One way to deal with the manipulative narrative is to do what Jesus did to Peter when Peter took Jesus aside and began to rebuke him. Jesus rebuked Peter: Get behind me Satan! You’re trying to trip me up! You’re not looking at things like God does! You’re looking at things like a mere mortal!” Jesus put his Father’s words in front of him and put man’s manipulative narrative – avoid pain, suffering and death – behind him.

The father of lies has been around since the Garden of Eden. He lies and he wants you to be a party to his lies. The Evil One is behind manipulative narratives as Jesus makes clear when he denounces the Judeans and their narrative, one of evoking their Abrahamic lineage as proof of the rightness of their narrative.

“You are from your father – the devil! And you’re eager to get on with what he wants. He was a murderer from the beginning, and he’s never remained in the truth, because there is no truth in him, because he is a liar – in fact, he’s the father of lies!” (Jn. 8:44)

The teachers of the law and the religious leaders in Jesus’ day wanted to control the narrative of what the law said, how it was to be applied, and of who had say-so with regard to the law. They clearly had expectations of a Messiah who would overthrow the Romans and of a man as not as repulsive as John the Baptist and of a man not as conciliatory as Jesus. Truth showed up one day in the marketplace and revealed their manipulative narrative (Matt. 11;15-17) regarding John the Baptist and of himself:

“If you’ve got ears, then listen!

“What picture shall I give you for this generation? Asked Jesus. “It’s like a bunch of children sitting in the town square, and singing songs to each other. This is how it goes:

‘You didn’t dance when we played the flute;

You didn’t cry when we sang the dirge!’

The narrative of the teachers of the law and the religious leaders clearly had its expectations. And when those expectations were not met the crowd would have Jesus crucified. The same deference to popularized and propagandized narratives with expectations based on ideological fiction is true now. And the same totalitarian impulse, like in Stalin’s and Hitler’s time and, today, within the Progressive Element, desires that you be in the thrall of their narrative, to dance to its music and to sing its songs. And in servitude to Big Brother’s narrative you will soon hear “‘You dance when we say dance! You sing when we say sing! Or, else! for totalitarianism and the evil behind it are never satisfied. Both seek to control outcomes with lies and manipulation and then with force.

Filed under Culture, Economics, History, Liberalism, Political Commentary, Politics, Progressivism, social commentary, socialism Tagged with cultural Marxism, culture, Google, Machine Learning Fairness, media, progressivism, subliminal manipulation, totalitarianism, Two Minutes Hate

Are You Witnesses of All This?

April 21, 2019 Leave a comment

Over the last several posts I’ve written about philosophers (Epicurus in particular and Protagoras) and philosophies (Epicureanism and Stoicism). Taken together they state, among other things I described earlier, that this life is all there is. There would be no hereafter in that way of thinking. During the first century the Apostle Paul, the “the apostle of the Gentiles”, encountered those worldviews on the streets where he sold his tents and in the early churches where he taught.

Writing to those in the Corinthian church whose Gentile members denied a resurrection of the dead, Paul responded in a rather taunting manner to their philosophical take on death as final. The gospel he proclaimed – Jesus is Lord, forgiveness of sins, new creation, the kingdom of God on earth has been launched – all hinged on the resurrection of Jesus.

And if the Messiah wasn’t raised, your faith is pointless, and you are still in your sins. 1 Cor. 15:7

After addressing and closing the dead are raised issue with an eye witness defense (1 Cor. 15: 3-8), Paul responds to the heart of the Corinthian objection to resurrection: the nature of future bodies. He mocks their materialist objections using an analogy from nature:

But someone is now going to say, “How are the dead raised? What sort of body will they have when they come back? Stupid! What you sow doesn’t come back to life unless it dies. 1 Cor. 15: 35

No doubt, Paul also heard that Jesus responded in a similar fashion when he rebuked the Sadducees who denied the resurrection (as recorded in Luke 20:38 and below, in Mark 12:

“Where you are going wrong,” replied Jesus, “is that you don’t know the scriptures, or God’s power. When people rise from the dead, they don’t marry, nor do people give them in marriage. They are like angels in heaven.

However, to show that the dead are indeed raised, surely you’ve read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the bush, what God says to Moses? ‘I am Abraham’s God, Isaac’s God, and Jacob’s God’? He isn’t the God of the dead, but of the living. You are completely mistaken.”

In the same letter (1 Cor.15:19), agitated Paul, in talking about people’s motivations in light of their position on the resurrection, recommends Epicurean self-pity if the dead are not raised.

If it’s only in this present life that we have hope in the Messiah, we are the most pitiable members of the human race.

He later quotes a popular Epicurean saying that embraces self-pity and self-indulgence in light off…

…If the dead are not raised,

“Let us eat and drink,

for tomorrow we die.”

1 Cor. 15:32

What was Paul’s background that offered him insight into Greek philosophies? We learn from Acts 21: 37 -39 as he defends himself against highly agitated Jews who clamored for his arrest. He is brought before a Roman tribune:

“Am I allowed to say something to you??” he asked.

“Well!” replied the tribune. “So you know some Greek, do you? Aren’t you the Egyptian who raised a revolt some while back and led those four thousand ‘assassins’ into the desert?”

“Actually, replied Paul. “I am a Jew! I am from Tarsus in Cilica. That’s not an insignificant place to be a citizen of. Please let me speak to the people.”

Inferring his Roman citizenship, Paul goes on to defend his Jewish background in the face of his Jewish accusers:

“I am a Jew, he continued, “and born in Tarsus in Cilicia. I received my education here in this city, and I studied at the feet of Gamaliel. I was trained in the strictest interpretations of our ancestral laws and became zealous for God, just as all of you today.”

Paul had significant first-hand knowledge of Greek, Roman and Jewish worldviews. Paul was more than able to respond to the Epicurean context of the Gentiles. Paul was more than able to present the gospel in the context of the Jewish worldview, a worldview of monotheism, the Temple, eschatology and …resurrection.

The narrative of the resurrection and an eschatology of the age to come took on great import during the Second Temple Judaism. Other than the words of Moses and some metaphorical allusions to resurrection by Isaiah (Isaiah 26:19) and Ezekiel (37), there isn’t mention of the resurrection in the Old Testament. Those allusions were applied during the Babylonian exile. They refer to the restoration of Israel as a nation and the reoccurring theme of exodus from bondage. The scribe Daniel is the first to mention the resurrection in non-metaphorical terms when he describes the “wise”, the Jewish resistance to Antiochus, not dying in vain (Daniel 11).

It was during the intertestamental period that scribes began writing about the resurrection of the dead, among many other topics of concern during late Second Temple Judaism. The Qumran community kept these writings in clay jars within caves in case the community was taken out by the Romans.

The Jewish religious leaders in Jesus’ time knew these writings, e.g., The Epistle of Enoch and 2 Maccabees. The disciples knew them. Paul knew them. The writings were talked about in the synagogues and on the streets. These writings offered a Messianic hope for the coming day when God would put things right. In the meantime, they stoked courage against the looming threat of Roman authority. It is very likely that Mary and Martha would have known about these writing as well. It appears that Martha had an understanding of them when she confronts Jesus after her brother Lazarus dies.

When Martha heard that Jesus had arrived, she went to meet him. Mary, meanwhile stayed sitting at home.

“Master,” said Martha to Jesus, “if only you’d been here! Then my brother wouldn’t have died! But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask him for.”

“Your brother will rise again,” replied Jesus.

“I know he will rise on the last day.”

(Notice the role reversals from the previous Mary and Martha encounter with Jesus in their home? Martha, the fussbudget homebody, is now interested to hear what Jesus has to say. She goes to meet him. Mary, who doted on Jesus at his feet, stays at home where she grieves and perhaps sulks that Jesus wasn’t there for her brother. She was given another chance at Jesus’ feet.)

Jesus responded to Martha.

“I am the resurrection and the life,” replied Jesus. “Anyone who believes in me will live, even if they die. And anyone who lives and believes in me will never, ever die. Do you believe this?”

“Yes, master,” she said. “This is what I’ve come to believe: that you are the Messiah, the son of God, the one who was to come into the world.”

Jesus responded to Martha’s eschatological understanding with, in effect, “I am revising your understanding with personal present tense knowledge of me”. Jesus then asks for Mary. Proximity to Jesus matters and not only for Mary and Martha’s sake but also for Jesus’ sake. He wants to see for himself the loss, the grief and the pain we feel. He would carry our griefs and sorrows to the cross and then remove the sting of death with his (and then our) resurrection.

When Mary came to where Jesus was, she saw him and fell down at his feet.

“Master!” she said, “If only you’d been here, my brother wouldn’t have died!”

When Jesus saw her crying, and the Judeans who had come with her crying, he was deeply stirred in his spirit, and very troubled…”

Mary and Martha witnessed the resurrection of their brother Lazarus. The three of them would learn of and perhaps be among the over five-hundred brothers and sisters who saw Jesus alive after his resurrection (1 Cor. 15: 5). All of them were witnesses of the things that came to pass. And what came to pass was not a doctrine or a philosophy or an apparition – a ghost. It was bodily resurrection.

No mere manmade philosophy, ancient or otherwise, could ever revive the dead or comfort the living in their loss with “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.” No amount of pleasure reduces the pain we feel. No amount of materialism and its cheerleading proponent Progressivism – a political pandering to self-pity – will provide hope for today. Those philosophical positions are about nursing wounds. Those philosophical positions are ephemera compared to the reality of the bodily Resurrection of Jesus and the new life offered to those who believe.

Only the Resurrection and the Life can reverse the downward spiral of mankind and provide hope that doesn’t pass away with a meal. Live in the present tense Resurrection and Life as Mary and Martha and hundreds of early followers of Jesus did.

Are you witnesses of all this? Of the resurrection? Or, are you witnesses of the Easter bunny? I think that’s what Paul had in mind when he mocked the Corinthians.

Empty tomb

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The Resurrection is the central theme in every Christian sermon reported in the Acts. The Resurrection, and its consequences were the “gospel” or good news which the Christians brought: what we call the “gospels,” the narratives of Our Lord’s life and death, were composed later for the benefit of those who had already accepted the gospel. They were in no sense the basis of Christianity: they were written for those already converted. The miracle of the Resurrection, and the theology of that miracle, comes first: the biography comes later as a comment on it. Nothing could be more unhistorical than to pick out selected sayings of Christ from the gospels and to regard those as the datum and the rest of the New Testament as a construction upon it. The first fact in the history of Christendom is a number of people who say they have seen the Resurrection.

– Miracles, C.S. Lewis

Filed under Christianity, Death, Easter, Greek History, History, Philosophy, Short Story Tagged with Christianity, death, Easter, philosophy, resurrection

Don’t Adjust the Contrast

January 20, 2019 Leave a comment

From a humanities perspective, God’s word to us is a study in contrasts. Distinctions of people, places and things are noted on page after page. The Creator, who dwells in unapproachable light, provided those created in His image with eyes to see and ears to hear so as to discern the dissimilarities with a handbook of juxtapositions as a guide. And so, we read of light and darkness, good and evil, love and hatred and much, much more. Let’s take a look.

At the beginning of the God and human narrative one can read of a void and then a creation, of night and day, of sea and dry land, of heaven and earth, of human and animal, of male and female, of right and wrong choices, and of the garden and not the garden.

Later we learn of Egypt and the Promised Land and of leeks and garlic and of milk and honey.

Israel is given the Ten Commandments to contrast right from wrong behavior towards God and others.

Slavery or freedom are predominant alternatives posed to Israel.

Israel must choose between serving idols or serving the One True God.

The Torah provides Godly practices to do and unclean pagan practices to avoid.

The Psalms of Solomon (eighteen psalms) serve a didactic role as they describe the ways of sinners and their end and the way of the righteous and their end.

The wisdom literature of Proverbs encourages us to consider the ways of the wise and the foolish.

Ecclesiastes talks about contrasting seasons and perspectives.

The prophets reminded Israel of the alienating contrast between seeking God’s hometown blessing through obedience and exile from the City of Peace because of disobedience. Isaiah contrasts the fate of the Babylonians and Israel (Is. 26).

Daniel the scribe presents us his account of dreams and visions which contrast beastly rulers and beastly empires with the coming righteous and just reign of the Son of Man.

The intertestamental Jewish writings repeat and augment the differences found in the Old Testament:

Unrighteous rulers and the Messiah; Antiochus IV Epiphanes and The King of the Universe (2 Maccabees)

Fallen angels and holy ones of God (1 Enoch 15)

The fate of the unrighteous and the righteous at the time of the resurrection and judgment (4 Ezra 7).

The Gospels record the polarizing life and teaching of Jesus. Here, briefly, are some of the dichotomies Jesus presents through parables and encounters:

Sand and rock.

Lost and found.

Blind and seeing.

Out of your mind and in your right mind.

Pride and humility.

Wheat and chaff.

Sheep and goats.

Water and wine and the best wine.

Blessings (Matthew 5) and woes (Matthew 23).

Virtue signaling righteousness and honest to goodness righteousness.

Truth and untruth.

The world and the kingdom of God.

The self-righteous and the humble.

The wide way and the narrow way.

Faith and sight.

Life and death.

First and last.

There is a contrast within no contrast: the rain falls on the just and the unjust.

The fierceness of Jesus’ gaze and his tears over Jerusalem and at a funeral.

(Jesus does not contrast the rich and poor as do Progressives based on their power-gathering political ideology. Instead, Jesus contrasted the poverty of material mindedness with the richness of righteousness mindedness.)

The Epistles continue the contrast narrative begun in the Old Testament and reiterated in the Jewish writings between the testaments. With this univocal background and the unequivocal words of Jesus, the writers of the epistles provide the theology and practical application of the Kingdom of God on earth using opposites. Here is a list of some those:

The righteous and the unrighteous.

The justified and the unjust.

The reprobate and the rescued

Those who have exchanged truth for a lie and those who dwell in truth.

Those who do not acknowledge God and those who

Those with a stubborn and unrepentant heart and those who “by perseverance in doing good seek for glory and honor and immortality, eternal life”.

The glorious inheritance in Christ and the minimum wage of death

There are those who say you may have faith but I have works and those who show their faith by their works.

Those who live by faith and those who live by sight.

Those who say one thing and do another and those who love in word and deed.

False teaching and teaching that has been handed down.

The physical body and the spiritual body.

The body used for immorality and the body as the temple of God.

Saints and sinners.

The Levitical priesthood and Melchizedek’s priesthood.

Light and darkness.

Throughout Scripture we read of the people of God and the enemies of God. The opposing forces clash in the last days. They and the whole universe reach a summing point in Jesus.

The Apostle John, in The Revelation of Jesus Christ, testifies that mankind’s entrenched polar opposites come together for the Lord of the Universe’s final division:

The letter begins with a heart-stopping contrast: “I was dead, and behold I am alive for ever and ever!”

Seven letters to churches delineate “well done” times and sharp warnings about dysfunctional times.

John’s apocalyptic letter details…

Those written in the book of life and those not written in the book of life.

Hades and Heaven.

The lake of fire and the river of the water of life.

Demonic forces and angels.

Satan and the Son of Man.

The Beast and the Lamb.

A war to end all wars and a peace to end all wars.

The lion and the lamb.

Despite all the bally-hoo touting rainbow-colored “diversity, in the end all of the temporary social constructs will be torn down to reveal the definer of persons and groups to be result of choices each has made with black and white alternatives. Note, Jesus did not say, “I am for your way and your truth and your lifestyle”. Even Jesus did not choose his own way but the Father’s. Had Jesus chosen that which was offered to him by the Satan in the desert and later by Pontius Pilate where would mankind be?

With all of the contrasts, binaries, dichotomies and lack of ambiguities in the God and human narrative that are re-voiced from start to finish, it’s as if God wanted us to “choose this day whom we will serve”.

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In C.S. Lewis’ Perelandra novel, Ransom questions the Green Lady. He is trying to understand why he was invited to Perelandra and about its world and its ways. At one point the Green Lady responds:

“Since our Beloved became a man, how can reason in any world take another form? Do you not understand? That is all over. Among times there is a time that turns a corner and everything this side of it is new. Times do not go backward.”

Filed under Christianity, History, humanities, Scripture Tagged with Christianity, history, humanities, Scripture

Pericles and the Guardians of Civility

June 13, 2015 Leave a comment

As citizens we are all on duty… the day of evil has come.

We live in the Internet era of instantaneous synthetic ‘truths’. We are cognizant that information and, in particular, history, is readily available to us within seconds. Sadly, because the information is so accessible and so immediate we do not avail ourselves of its import as it relates to life in the present…

The Funeral Oration of Pericles (excerpts below) is a translation from The Peloponnesian War of Thucydides (emphasis mine).

You may read the English translation of the full text transcript of Pericles’ Funeral Oration, according to the Greek historian Thucydides here and here with background. Pericles delivered this speech in the year 431 BC.

Thucydides: “The same winter the Athenians, according to their ancient custom, solemnized a public funeral of the first slain in this war in this manner. … And when the earth is thrown over them, someone thought to exceed the rest in wisdom and dignity, chosen by the city, maketh an oration wherein he giveth them such praises as are fit; which done, the company depart. And this is the form of that burial; and for the whole time of the war, whensoever there was occasion, they observed the same. For these first the man chosen to make the oration was Pericles the son of Xantippus, who, when the time served, going out of the place of burial into a high pulpit to be heard the farther off by the multitude about him, spake unto them in this manner.”

Greek Historian Thucydides

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Pericles

Pericles: “I shall begin with our ancestors. It is both just and proper that they should have the honor of the first mention on an occasion like the present. They dwelt in the country without break in the succession from generation to generation, and handed it down free to the present time by their valor. And if our more remote ancestors deserve praise, much more do our own fathers, who added to their inheritance the empire which we now possess, and spared no pains to be able to leave their acquisitions to us of the present generation.

“…”

“Our constitution does not copy the laws of neighboring states. We are rather a pattern to others than imitators ourselves. Its administration favors the many instead of the few; this is why it is called a democracy. If we look to the laws, they afford equal justice to all in their private differences; if no social standing, advancement in public life falls to reputation for capacity, class considerations not being allowed to interfere with merit; nor again does poverty bar the way, if a man is able to serve the state, he is not hindered by the obscurity of his condition.

The freedom which we enjoy in our government extends also to our ordinary life. There, far from exercising a jealous surveillance over each other, we do not feel called upon to be angry with our neighbor for doing what he likes, or even to indulge in those injurious looks which cannot fail to be offensive, although they inflict no positive penalty. But all this ease in our private relations does not make us lawless as citizens. Against this fear is our chief safeguard, teaching us to obey the magistrates and the laws, particularly such as regard the protection of the injured, whether they are actually on the statute book, or belong to that code which, although unwritten, yet cannot be broken without acknowledged disgrace.”

“…”

“If we turn to our military policy, there also we differ from our antagonists. We throw open our city to the world, and never by alien acts exclude foreigners from any opportunity of learning or observing, although the eyes of an enemy may occasionally profit by our liberality; trusting less in system and policy than to the native spirit of our citizens; while in education, where our rivals from their very cradles by a painful discipline seek after manliness, at Athens we live exactly as we please, and yet are just as ready to encounter every legitimate danger.”

“…”

Pericles Funeral oration text

Nor are these the only points in which our city is worthy of admiration. We cultivate refinement without extravagance and knowledge without effeminacy; wealth we employ more for use than for show, and place the real disgrace of poverty not in owning to the fact but in declining the struggle against it. Our public men have, besides politics, their private affairs to attend to, and our ordinary citizens, though occupied with the pursuits of industry, are still fair judges of public matters; for, unlike any other nation, regarding him who takes no part in these duties not as unambitious but as useless, we Athenians are able to judge at all events if we cannot originate, and, instead of looking on discussion as a stumbling-block in the way of action, we think it an indispensable preliminary to any wise action at all.”

“…”

[These men] “… holding that vengeance upon their enemies was more to be desired than any personal blessings, and reckoning this to be the most glorious of hazards, they joyfully determined to accept the risk, to make sure of their vengeance, and to let their wishes wait; and while committing to hope the uncertainty of final success, in the business before them they thought fit to act boldly and trust in themselves. Thus choosing to die resisting, rather than to live submitting, they fled only from dishonor, but met danger face to face, and after one brief moment, while at the summit of their fortune, escaped, not from their fear, but from their glory.

So died these men as became Athenians. You, their survivors, must determine to have as unfaltering a resolution in the field, though you may pray that it may have a happier issue. And not contented with ideas derived only from words of the advantages which are bound up with the defense of your country, though these would furnish a valuable text to a speaker even before an audience so alive to them as the present, you must yourselves realize the power of Athens, and feed your eyes upon her from day to day, till love of her fills your hearts; and then, when all her greatness shall break upon you, you must reflect that it was by courage, sense of duty, and a keen feeling of honor in action that men were enabled to win all this, and that no personal failure in an enterprise could make them consent to deprive their country of their valor, but they laid it at her feet as the most glorious contribution that they could offer.

“…”

“These take as your model and, judging happiness to be the fruit of freedom and freedom of valor, never decline the dangers of war. For it is not the miserable that would most justly be unsparing of their lives; these have nothing to hope for: it is rather they to whom continued life may bring reverses as yet unknown, and to whom a fall, if it came, would be most tremendous in its consequences. And surely, to a man of spirit, the degradation of cowardice must be immeasurably more grievous than the unfelt death which strikes him in the midst of his strength and patriotism!”

“…”

Turning to the sons or brothers of the dead, I see an arduous struggle before you. When a man is gone, all are wont to praise him, and should your merit be ever so transcendent, you will still find it difficult not merely to overtake, but even to approach their renown. The living have envy to contend with, while those who are no longer in our path are honored with a goodwill into which rivalry does not enter. On the other hand, if I must say anything on the subject of female excellence to those of you who will now be in widowhood, it will be all comprised in this brief exhortation. Great will be your glory in not falling short of your natural character; and greatest will be hers who is least talked of among the men, whether for good or for bad.

My task is now finished. I have performed it to the best of my ability, and in word, at least, the requirements of the law are now satisfied. If deeds be in question, those who are here interred have received part of their honors already, and for the rest, their children will be brought up till manhood at the public expense: the state thus offers a valuable prize, as the garland of victory in this race of valor, for the reward both of those who have fallen and their survivors. And where the rewards for merit are greatest, there are found the best citizens.

“Such was the funeral made this winter, which ending, ended the first year of this war.”

June 2015:

https://youtu.be/6KW6_eLsAXM

The good news: as of today, Saturday, June 13th 2015, Staff Sgt. Thomas Florich WILL be buried in Arlington National Cemetery…as a guardian of civility.

Those of us in the Kingdom of Heaven on earth must not seek revenge, as Pericles mentioned above. Rather we must stand firm when required and also defend with our actions what is true and good and the widow and orphans.

“Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people.” From the Apostle Paul’s letter to the churches found in Ephesians chapter 6: 10-18, (circa 60-80 AD).

Filed under Current Events 2015, Greek History, History Tagged with citizenship, civility, Greek History, national guard, Pericles, Pericles' Funeral Oration, Staff Sgt. Thomas Florich, the armor of God, Thucydides, valor

Memorial Day 2015: Wake Up America Day!

May 25, 2015 Leave a comment

“People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors.” Edmund Burke

U.S. Army’s 1st Infantry Division Museum, Cantigny, Wheaton, IL

Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. George Santayana (empahsis mine)

Fourth of July father and son, Cantigny

Modern liberalism, for most liberals is not a consciously understood set of rational beliefs, but a bundle of unexamined prejudices and conjoined sentiments. The basic ideas and beliefs seem more satisfactory when they are not made fully explicit, when they merely lurk rather obscurely in the background, coloring the rhetoric and adding a certain emotive glow. James Burnham (emphasis mine)

“The Spirit of Commitment” by Jeff Adams – Cantigny – Wheaton IL

It is not that liberals, when they enter the governing class…never make use of force; unavoidably they do, sometimes to excess. But because of their ideology they are not reconciled intellectually and morally to force. They therefore tend to use it ineptly, at the wrong times and places, against the wrong targets, in the wrong amounts. James Burnham

Under Progressivism, criminals are ‘victims’.

Under Progressivism the healthy and productive are the ones to be coerced.

Wake Up America!
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American Composer Aaron Copland (November 14, 1900 – December 2, 1990) wrote “Fanfare for the Common Man.” Here it is performed both traditionally and surprisingly.

As a big fan of Aaron Copland and of Emerson, Lake and Palmer (ELP) and as a trumpet player I am commending this to you. Enjoy (and certainly remember the cost of liberty) this Memorial Day 2015!

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“The Spirit of Commitment” by Jeff Adams

U.S. Army’s 1st Infantry Division Museum

Filed under Current Events 2015, History, Memorial Day Tagged with 1st Infantry Division Museum, Cantigny, Edmund Burke, George Santayana, history, James Burnham, Memorial Day 2015

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THIS SIDE OF PARADISE

“We have entered, as I see it, a spiritual limbo. Our educational institutions are no longer the bearers of high culture, and public life has been deliberately moronised. But here and there, sheltered from the noise and glare of the media, the old spiritual forces are at work” Roger Scruton

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“When a common culture declines, the ethical life can be sustained and renewed only by a work of the imagination.”-Roger Scruton
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“Jesus prayed, “This is eternal life, that they may know You . . .” (John 17:3). The real meaning of eternal life is a life that can face anything it has to face without wavering. If we will take this view, life will become one great romance— a glorious opportunity of seeing wonderful things all the time. God is disciplining us to get us into this central place of power.” Oswald Chambers
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“No power on earth or in hell can conquer the Spirit of God in a human spirit, it is an inner unconquerableness.” Oswald Chambers
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To those who have had no agony Jesus says, “I have nothing for you; stand on your own feet, square your own shoulders. I have come for the man who knows he has a bigger handful than he can cope with, who knows there are forces he cannot touch; I will do everything for him if he will let Me. Only let a man grant he needs it, and I will do it for him.” The Shadow of an Agony,Oswald Chambers
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“If we wish to erect new structures, we must have a definite knowledge of the old foundations.” John Calvin Coolidge
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Atheism is a post-Christian phenomenon.
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If social justice looks like your hand in someone else’s pocket then you are stealing.
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“In Sweden, giving to charity, absurdly, came to be considered a lack of solidarity, since it undermined the need for the welfare state.” – Roland Martinsson
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“…to love democracy well, it is necessary to love it moderately.” Alexis de Tocqueville
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Capitalism seeks to help others through a servce or product it provides. Free Market Capitalism is the most moral and fair economic system available to man. Capitalism augments personal growth, responsibility and ownership. Charity flourishes under capitalism. Charity dies under subjective “fair share” government confiscatory policies. Socialism redistributes ambivalence and greed.
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“We are to regard existence as a raid or great adventure; it is to be judged, therefore, not by what calamities it encounters, but by what flag it follows and what high town it assaults. The most dangerous thing in the world is to be alive; one is always in danger of one’s life. But anyone who shrinks from that is a traitor to the great scheme and experiment of being.” G.K. Chesterton
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Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent.
It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage – to move in the opposite direction. Albert Einstein
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“You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you odd.” Flannery O’Connor
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“There is but one good; that is God. Everything else is good when it looks to Him and bad when it turns from Him.” C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce
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“Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him” (Job 13:15).
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God’s grace is not about the allowance for sin. God’s grace is about the conversation God allows regarding sin.
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From the book of Proverbs: We are not to favor the rich or the poor. We are to pursue justice.
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“Always keep in contact with those books and those people that enlarge your horizon and make it possible for you to stretch yourself mentally.” Oswald Chambers
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One goldfish says to another, “If there is no God who keeps changing the water?”
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“The truth is always there in the morning.”
From Cat On A Hot Tin Roof script – playwright Tennessee Williams
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God blesses those who hunger and thirst for justice, for they will be satisfied.
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“America’s greatness has been the greatness of a free people who shared certain moral commitments. Freedom without moral commitment is aimless and promptly self-destructive.” John W. Gardner
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“Men of integrity, by their very existence, rekindle the belief that as a people we can live above the level of moral squalor. We need that belief; a cynical community is a corrupt community.” John W. Gardner
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“In the world it is called Tolerance, but in hell it is called Despair, the sin that believes in nothing, cares for nothing, seeks to know nothing, interferes with nothing, enjoys nothing, hates nothing, finds purpose in nothing, lives for nothing, and remains alive because there is nothing for which it will die.” Dorothy L. Sayers
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“Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere.”
G. K. Chesterton
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“The battle line between good and evil runs through the heart of every man.” Alexander Solzhenitsyn
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This is what the LORD says:

“Stand at the crossroads and look;
ask for the ancient paths,
ask where the good way is, and walk in it,
and you will find rest for your souls.
But you said, ‘We will not walk in it.’

-The prophet Jeremiah, 6:16
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“…our common task is not so much discovering a truth hiding among contrary viewpoints as it is coming to possess a selfhood that no longer evades and eludes the truth with which it is importunately confronted.” James McClendon, Ethics: Systematic Theology, Vol. 1
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