The Left Goes Berserk Over Study That Shows Their Narrative Is B.S.

 I have several pieces to highlight today, in no particular order.  Starting here though, is an article at Townhall.com by Matt Vespa entitled 'All Hell Breaks Loose' Harvard Professor Recalls One Study That Caused the Left the (sic) Implode. I am not surprised because the Left is in part a machine to generate outrage on cue. Cartoonist Al Capp had it right when he came up with the "Students Wildly Indignant About Nearly Everything" or S.W.I.N.E. In this case, the Harvard professor, who is black, by the way, did a study to find out if police shootings were indeed caused by bias against blacks. The upshot was they could find no racial bias. To make sure, he repeated the study with different researchers, to find the same thing.

Harvard professor Roland Fryer conducted a study that was timely and thought-provoking at a time when officer-involved shootings have become a media beat that’s not interested in the truth but a way for over-educated pseudo commentators to offer lectures about white supremacy and police overreach. Remember, these shootings are part of a covert genocide against black men. More often than not, the police’s use of deadly force turns out to be justifiable. Fryer opted to do a study on whether there were racial biases in these shootings. His study suggested race was not a factor, which caused everyone to lose their minds. Being a thorough scholar, he redid the study and hired a new team of researchers. The results were the same.

Fryer has come back into the news after he sat down with former New York Times editorial writer Bari Weiss, who also fled due to her former place of employment becoming an illiberal cesspool. Fryer said his study would ruin his career. He was forced to obtain armed security due to the backlash. You could say Fryer was canceled after sexual misconduct allegations were lobbed against him, which caused him to be suspended and close his research department. Then-President Claudine Gay said of these allegations, "The totality of these behaviors is a clear violation of institutional norms and a betrayal of the trust."

You will want to read the whole article, of course, and please click on the embedded video. It is telling that the Left doesn't want to have anything like an academic study get in the way of a good narrative.

The Evil One Shows His Fear

 Eric Utter has a post at the American Thinker entitled Evil silencing good that makes the point that conservatives and Christians need to stand up for what is right and true as loudly and fearlessly as those pushing evil on us and our children.

“Evil preaches tolerance until it is dominant, then it tries to silence good.” —Archbishop Charles J. Chaput

That is a remarkably astute observation, perfectly stated.

And such a true and important concept that it should be taught in every school at every level.

Longtime readers know I do not consider tolerance to be a virtue, per se. This should not be a novel idea, nor particularly difficult to grasp. Tolerance of differing food or musical tastes, for example, is good. Tolerance of murder and incest is not. Archbishop Chaput realizes that the left preaches tolerance for all things it likes, but not so much for those it doesn’t. And, when it acquires power, it uniformly tries to shut down and shut up any entity with which it disagrees. And, especially, anyone that could challenge its power and control.

I have long realized three things that are essential to understanding the world as it stands today. One: tolerance is not necessarily a virtue. Two: there is an ongoing, if largely unrecognized, battle between good and evil. And three: the only way good can prevail over evil-- and ultimate chaos and meaninglessness -- is for the majority of people to be courageous enough to tell the truth. Archbishop Chaput’s statement encompasses all of these beliefs in one succinct assertion.

Tolerance is the willingness to put up with opinions, behaviors, or situations with which one does not agree. In this country we "tolerate" gays and lesbians for example. In Muslim countries they throw them off a roof. Muslims are intolerant. As Christians, we tolerate many things, up to a point. We do this because as long as a person is alive, the Holy Spirit may inspire a person to repent and change. But one has to realize that today the evil ones have taken our tolerance as weakness, as license to invade our public space with all sorts of perversions God finds anathema.

As adults, we can "tolerate" many things. But we cannot tolerate our children's exposure to these things. We have to draw the line and draw it hard. Teachers may do things that parents might not approve of, but as long as these things don't intrude into the classroom, we can tolerate them. And certainly, we cannot tolerate them doing anything secretly with our children. Our children are our sacred responsibility to raise. Teachers, on the other hand are hired to provide education in specific subjects. They are hardly able to raise our children because they do not have a true relationship with them.

There is a bizarre — and dangerous — double standard, a two-tier justice system that has taken hold in modern day America. “MAGA” supporters are arrested at the drop of a hat, whereas members of BLM, Antifa, and various other assorted radicals are treated with kid gloves. No one is allowed to so much as raise their voice against the indoctrination — or mutilation — of their kids in a parent-teacher meeting, yet threatening conservatives is damn near de rigueur. Just days ago a group of radicals surrounded the conservative Heritage Foundation’s building, with a couple activists telling the crowd that they need to find out “where they live,” “where their office is,” and “where they go to church,” referring to those inside.

To the last, I say bring it on. Our God has already won.

This two-tiered justice system is something we definityly should not tolerate either for ourselves or for others. We should demand a single form uf justice for all, not simply complain that there are two teirs. We know what happens if the normal people stayed silent.

THEY work for US, Part II

 I did not get to this post yesterday as I had to work, but J. B. Shurk had a great post that expanded on my own of the day before that we are forgetting that They work for US, not the other way around.  His post can be found at the American Thinker entitled A Western Consensus Is Brewing. He sets the table thus:

However, something fundamental has been shifting beneath our feet. If you look at how civil conflict has been discussed on websites and internet forums over recent years, a noticeable trend emerges. Talk of “civil war” between various coalitions of states transformed into calls for “independence” from tyrannical government on par with America’s 1776 founding. In turn, calls for an American-style “revolution” against government abuse have transformed into the kind of rage against a “permanent ruling class” that existed before the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror.

This shift is significant. “Civil war” connotes a feeling that Americans will be fighting one another. A “1776-style struggle for Independence” reflects a belief that the federal government must be brought to heel. Widespread discussions of how to rid the country of an unaccountable bureaucracy with more allegiance to fellow globalists from the World Economic Forum than to fellow citizens from America’s heartland reveal a growing recognition of and antipathy for an entrenched ruling aristocracy.

Governments don’t mind when citizens quarrel. In fact, that old “divide and conquer” scheme is Washington’s favorite tactic for keeping Americans too busy fighting one another to notice what kind of mischief is going on in D.C. Governments would prefer that citizens not speak about “freedom” or “liberty” because those ideas are antithetical to bureaucratic mandates, institutional power-grabs, and rhetorical appeals to authority. Still, so long as an Orwellian news media establishment and a Machiavellian political class can work together to impugn “liberty” as “selfish” or “hateful,” then the powers that be largely succeed in twisting the meaning of “freedom” into a love for Big Government policies or a patriotic subservience to the State. However, when ordinary people begin to set aside their differences and instead turn their fury toward those holding the reins of power, well, Katie, bar the door — trouble’s brewing!

He points out that the jack booted thuggery we are seeing in America today, the two tiered justice system and the lawfare, including the Soviet style kangaroo courts, the cancellation of people who speak the truth, the attempts to censor anyone conservative, and of course the on-going persecution of J6 defendants betrays a growing panic on the Left. The Left would not be so bold if it were not extremely fearful of us.

This should not have to be said, but no society can be described as “free” unless that society can engage in free speech. Likewise, there can be no free speech unless the public is free to criticize and disagree with the government. Any government that claims a monopoly to determine what is true is a government hostile to dissent, debate, and democratic self-rule.

Western governments have so betrayed their duties to act as custodians of Enlightenment-inspired human rights that they have become as tyrannical as the tyrants against whom they posture. They are now little more than a collection of feudal lords using the trappings of their offices to enrich an insular “ruling class” while impoverishing and diminishing the masses.

I don't think there is one magic bullet that will save this nation, nor do I believe that the entire nation should be saved. Collectively, we have betrayed our founding, and God who preserved us. As Wild Bill for America always ends his youtube talks, "America bless God again." We need to do that, a lot. But we also need to vote more discerningly for those who would like to see the government, not America, brought down to manageable size. We must realize that the government cannot be all things to all people, especially because all people do not want the same things. We can, of course, tolerate these Satanic ideas as long as we are not forced to accept them. But laws that force it upon us, like Colorado tried to do to a cake shop cannot stand.

As an aside, I have always heard people complaining that the United States is for them a hell hole. When I ask them, quite sincerely, why they don't leave, they give me a number of lame answers. But I am still sincere. America is unique in the world, and it is exceptional. Oh, not in the way Leftists portray the term, but because of our founding as a representative republic. A number of not so unique nations are happy to have you take up citizenship in their countries. Go!

Remember too that I said that THEY, the government, work for US, the citizen, not the other way around. What person has a servant that is better armed than he is? Would a servant be allowed to tell his boss that he could not be armed? Imagine such a situation! That servant would be fired on the spot. They say they want to ban this gun, or that magazine. We say, "Who are you to tell us what we can and cannot have." We don't need such a big government making up laws upon laws that are simply redundant. Instead, we can govern ourselves by just making a sincere effort to follow the 10 Commandments.

They Work for Us

 Dan Wos at Ammoland has an analysis of the shooting at Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas entitled Is the Politial Left Creating a Victim/Predator Society? Gentle readers can Wos's article. He makes the point that so-called "transgender" people are mentally disturbed, and need to be treated for the malady, not celebrated. Then there is the anitsemitism and pro-Palestinian Left that seems to drive people...well...nuts.

What I want to bring up is at the end of his article:

It’s time to ask ourselves if we will continue to allow our elected employees to keep Americans in a perpetual state of unarmed helplessness, even after watching these brutal attacks time and time again. Is a victim/predator society the goal of the political left? If so, why?

We too often forget that they work for us. We pay their salary. They forget that too. Biden, with the connivance of Congress uses our tax dollars to encourage the invasion of our country in order to dilute our votes and bring our enemies inside our borders. This should have everyone boiling mad. The thing to do, of course, is to get rid of an awful lot of bureaucrats and replace our elected officials.  Then keep a close eye on these vipers.

Tucker Carlson Is Wrong. Russia Is A Third World Country With Nukes and Oil

 David Harsanyi, over at The Federalist has an article today entitled Tucker Carlson Is Wrong About the Moscow - And The United States. Harsanyi opens with:

At the World Government Summit, Tucker Carlson told a gathering of world leaders that Moscow “was so much nicer than any city” in the United States. “It’s radicalizing for an American to go to Moscow,” Tucker went on. “I didn’t know that. I’ve learned it this week, to Singapore, to Tokyo, to Dubai and Abu Dhabi, because these cities, no matter how we’re told they’re run and on what principles they’re run, are wonderful places to live that don’t have rampant inflation.”

He goes on to note that Carlson is way off in his assessment here, and I agree with him. Now, I haven't been to as many places as Carlson, or Harsanyi. But I have been to a few, and none of them beat living in the USA, even now. I've been to Panama, Costa Rica, Germany (briefly), Denmark, Norway, Sweeden and Finland. I could have gone to St. Petersburg, Russia, but at the time I was employed by the Navy. They had pretty strict rules about going there.

We lived in Panama for several years, and the people are nice, friendly, but no more so than people back here. But what locals could read, what books were available, was all heavily controlled. As Americans living on an American Naval Station, we had access to news, books, and other entertainment from home. But not so the ex-pats who lived in Panama. I really liked coming home. As an aside, we often asked my Mom to tape shows for us with the commercials, because we missed them.

We also took a trip to Scandanavia with our church. We went to see the how the Scandanavian countries uniquely implimented the construction of churces there. Unlike elsewhere, where there were stone cathedrals, the Scandanavian churches are wooden affairs. But we discovered that few people actually attended them, unlike back home. A five star hotel in Bergen, Norway would be on par with a typical Holiday Inn here. The famous Tivoli Garden in Copenhagan is about like a local city park here. Nothing really special. There is a lot of travel by bicycle, because people can't afford cars.

Here's the bottom line: The conditions under which the average person live in all these places was worse than back home. Sometimes, much worse. Now, I understand why many of these people resent us, for it is true that but for the grace of being born here, we too might be one of these people. We are fortunate, not only because we are here, but because of a unique set of laws that have made us prosperous and free, though our enemies are trying to change that. We are also fortunate because we are a child of Britain, where our ideas about government and the rules of laws not men were born. We should be grateful to God and should be humbled by that realization. We should seek to be the shining city on the hill, not trying to burn the place down.

As for Russia, Harsanyi notes:

There probably isn’t a single quantifiable economic measure in which Russia bests the United States. None of this is even to mention that Russia is an extraordinarily corrupt place, the price of which is embedded into virtually every business transaction. I’m not sure Americans appreciate how little graft they deal with in their everyday lives. Then again, Russia ranks in the vicinity of Uganda and Togo on the corruption indexes.

The only thing more pervasive than bribery is alcoholism and suicide. Russians have far worse medical care than we do. Far smaller homes. Fewer things to buy. Fewer places to see. Less mobility. Less innovation. Less meritocracy.

Not everything is about money, of course. Religious commitment? Around 50-65 percent of Americans claimed religion was important to them (depending on the poll). In Russia, it’s at 16-34 percent. The Russian divorce rate is at 74 percent, the highest in the world. And even though we’re headed in the wrong direction, we still have more children. But sure, crime has fallen over the years — though it is still higher in the Russian capital than most American cities.

I’m a big fan of Russian culture — Dostoevsky, Shostakovich, Tarkovsky, and so on. But that doesn’t change the fact that 20 percent of Russian households don’t have indoor plumbing. Or that a third of Russian hospitals don’t have running water. If you think infrastructure is bad here, I have news. Russia ranks 52nd on the Human Development Index. It’s basically a third-world country with nukes and an enormous reserve of oil and natural gas but little else.

I really don't know what Carlson was thinking. Perhaps his surroundings made him feel as if telling it like it is would not be well received. I don't know. But he got it wrong this time.

Biden Administration to Rely on Witch Doctors

At the American Thinker today Olivia Murray has a post that tells you all you need to know about what our government thinks is "science." Her post can be found at CDC and FDA poised to exchange one pseudoscience for another: "Indigenous Knowledge" set to replace "Follow the Science". Of course Murray is not belittling indigenous knowledge, for that is what many generations of people have come to know, as even she uses topical peppermint oil for her childrens' infections, thus avoiding dangerous antibiotics that destroy the gut microbiome. Mothers have used such remedies for...well...forever.

No, what Murray is pointing out is that both catch phrases are being used by the Biden administration to virtue-signal to their base while implying that we knuckle-dragging conservatives are just too unsophisticated...beyond the pale really, to even understand. What they are doing in fact is further undermining the medical professions, which have taken a real beating since going "woke."

The marketers and public relations consultants behind the “follow the science” campaign of the Covid-era left were definitely the B-team, and it seems like despite the failure, they still have their jobs. As a New York Times columnist wrote of the catchphrase:

"When Donald Trump was president and making false statements to downplay Covid, ‘follow the science’ began to gain popularity. Now, it also serves as a response to the many incorrect statements that vaccine opponents make. President Biden likes to promise that he will follow the science, to signal his difference from Trump and deference to the C.D.C."

"The phrase does have its uses. It’s a rejection of myth…."

Well, that didn’t age well, because it appears as though the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), along with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), are poised to exchange the pseudoscience of Big Pharma with… let’s all welcome “Indigenous Knowledge” to the asylum that is the federal bureaucracy. (And for those wondering, no, this is neither farce nor satire.)

Now, I have always thought that one of the things the American public owes its startling increase in lifespan to is the invention of flush toilet, along with sanitary sewers and sewage treatment, and fresh potable water pumped to the house. That eliminated a ton of waterborne diseases. By allowing bums to defecate on the public streets, San Fransico is flirting with a return of these diseases. Next would be the elimination of malaria in this country through the use of DDT. We are flirting with a return to this scourge by letting people in without checking their health status. But medicine played its roll too in knocking out many remaining infectious diseases like smallpox and polio. Indeed, now it seems that most deaths are due to chronic diseases such as cancer, heart disease, and various lifestyle diseases.

 (sarcasm on)Who knew that we didn't need any of that. We could have relied on "indigenous knowledge" instead and avoided all those expensive medical treatments.  Who knows, maybe if the Biden administration had thought of this sooner, we wouldn't have needed Obamacare?(end sarcasm)

Ignore the "He Gets Us" Campaign

 I was at rehearsal for our handbell choir at church yesterday evening, so did not catch Andrea Widburg´s excellent essay telling us that During the Super Bowl, leftists crusaded to recreate Christ in a cultural Marxist mode at the American Thinker. I have said before that it is impossible to be a Christian, in the Biblical understanding of Christ, and at the same time to be a socialist. Marxism is socialism, and in truth, Marx would have agreed. He called religion, any religion, the opiate of the masses. Leftists have sidled up to Muslims, but eventually they intend to kill them off too. After all, for leftists, they believe themselves to be their own highest power.

Widburg is a Jew, but living in this society, it is pretty difficult not to be exposed to some Christian thinking, and she rightly identifies the actual Jesus of the Bible. Jesus claims, and I believe he is, to be the God of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob. He is the God who created the world, the Alpha and Omega. He is before the world began and is after it ends. It was He that gave Moses the 10 Commandments, inscribed in stone tablets by His finger on Mount Sinai. He has not changed. He is the one who dispatches those who come into His presence without purifying themselves, but invites Moses and the 70 elders of Israel into his presence and does not kill them. As Jesus says, His Spirit blows where it will, calls who He will, forgives who He wills.

Now, Jesus is referred to as the Son of God, and Christians believe that God is a trinity.  It is a mystery, and in truth you should not try to overthink it.  Just accept that Father, Son and Holy Spirit are one being, at once separate and equal.  Just go with it.

When the Devil speaks, it is always a lie wrapped in a distorted truth that makes it hard to see the Truth and discern the lie. In this case, the notion that "He gets us" is true, but not in the way you might think. Yes, He gets us because He created us. He knows us better than we know ourselves. In the Psalms it says that he knew each of us before the world began. Eventually, He came to live among us, suffer the same temptations and afflictions we do, but unlike us, He was sinless. Thus He was able to die as the Pascal Lamb to take our sins onto himself and reconcile us to Him. But washing the deciples feet was to show that He is a servant to the people who believe in Him. At the same time it was pretty clear that our response to Him ought to be repentance, thanksgiving, and following his commands.

Gentle readers can read Widburg's essay, and they should. But if you aren't a Christian, and you want to find out who Jesus was, may I suggest that you start by reading Paul's Epistle to the Romans, as a good explanation of basic Christianity. It was written within about 30 years after Jesus's crucifixion. Then read all four Gospels, not as historical fact, though you will find many facts, but as statements of faith. If you want more, and you should, begin reading the Torah, the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. Those books will tell you who the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is. Then start going to a liturgical church, preferable a Missouri Synod Lutheran church, and start asking questions. Oh, yeah, don't believe anything the popular culture or the MSM tells you about Christ. As Paul says, read for yourself and test everything you hear, including this post.

Gentle readers should also read Raymond Ibrahim's article at the same source entitled 'Stop Hating, Wash Feet' in which he makes the point that Christians are supposed to fight for Christ. Granted that Christ gave the instruction to turn the other cheek. But that was in specific circumstances where someone was being insulting, or otherwise being condecsending, but not life threatening. But He did not intend for you to be beaten to death. He also instructed his deciples to carry a weapon. Being a Christian is not for the faint hearted, the weak, or the stupid.