Stephen Roney's Blog, page 214
November 30, 2020
Trudeau's Biggest Scandal
Let's hope Kinsella is wrong in his prediction that Canadians will not get a vaccine for another six months.
November 29, 2020
A Midrash
While he was yet speaking with them, Rachel came with her father’s sheep, for she kept them. When Jacob saw Rachel the daughter of Laban, his mother’s brother, and the sheep of Laban, his mother’s brother, Jacob went near, and rolled the stone from the well’s mouth, and watered the flock of Laban his mother’s brother. Jacob kissed Rachel, and lifted up his voice, and wept. Jacob told Rachel that he was her father’s relative, and that he was Rebekah’s son. She ran and told her father.
--Genesis 29:9-11, WEB.
Jacob treated Rachel at once as his cousin, which caused significant whispering among the by-standers. They censured Jacob for his demeanor toward her, for since God had sent the deluge upon the world, on account of the immoral life led by men, great chastity had prevailed, especially among the people of the east. The talk of the men reduced Jacob to tears. Scarcely had he kissed Rachel when he began to weep, for he repented of having done it.
There was reason enough for tears. Jacob could not but remember sadly that Eliezer, his grandfather's slave, had brought ten camels laden with presents with him to Haran, when he came to sue for a bride for Isaac, while he had not even a ring to give to Rachel. Moreover, he foresaw that his favorite wife Rachel would not lie beside him in the grave, and this, too, made him weep.
--Midrash (Ginsberg, Legends of the Jews).
“Then Jacob kissed Rachel. and he raised his voice and wept.” Bereishis 29: 11
Rashi explains that he cried because he came empty-handed. He said, “My father’s servant came with ten camels laden with gifts and finery, and I come with empty hands.”
Rashi goes on to explain to us why he didn’t bring a gift for Rachel. When Jacob found out that Esau was plotting to kill him, he fled from his father’s home. Esau sent his son Alifaz to chase down Jacob. Alifaz was a Tzaddik, and when he approached Jacob he said, “I can’t kill you because you are an innocent man. On the other hand, what will be with the command of my father?” Jacob said to him, “A poor man has the halachic status of a dead man. Take my money, and it will be considered as if you killed me, so on some level you will have fulfilled your father’s words.” As a result, Jacob came to the well empty-handed. When it was time to propose to Rachel, he didn’t have the gifts that would be expected, and so, he raised his voice and cried.
--Rabbinic commentary.
The theme that runs through this is the need to respect the proprieties. And this is the solution to the problem that sometimes moral demands will conflict: as in the case of Alifaz. Following tradition and set laws, even if in a “legalistic” manner, protects us in such moments.
Alifaz’s dilemma speaks to the children of dysfunctional families, as he was, who are torn between the requirement for “filial piety,” on the one hand, the demands of the family, and the fact that a narcissistic parent is often seeking their harm or demanding that they behave immorally towards others. The answer is apparently to give the parent their strict literal due, no more. Observe the proprieties. Confucius makes the same point.
In order to do this, it is essential to have an established moral code, the meaning of which is precise and clear. This is why we need the Ten Commandments, despite the fact that the principles of true morality are embedded in the conscience of each of us. This is why we need the Bible, and organized religion.
And this is also why people who act on their immediate desires without minding the requirements of propriety, are so damaging.
The situation of Jacob and Rachel is in turn a warning against the mirage of “true love,” which so often misleads the abused. It is not enough that two people are “in love.” A love that does not follow the proprieties is not true love, for this is ultimately disrespectful of the other party. This is putting the emotion or the urge above their human dignity.
Clear traditions and requirements protect us from giving another either too much or too little recognition. Too much, and you are feeding their possible narcissism. Too little, and you are driving them towards depression and anxiety. For this, it is essential to have a Book, a Law, a tradition.
And it is dangerous too for the once-abused to go about seeking excessive recognition—looking for the “unconditional love” they are told by some therapists they always deserved. Because this will lead that poor fly into the lair of the next narcissistic spider, who recognizes the need.
'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.
November 28, 2020
Premier Ford Gently Blames Trudeau for Delays in Vaccination
The Kraken Prepares Its Breakfast
State government controlSeveral commentators are now pointing out a plausible path for Trump to be re-elected.
1. The Giuliani, Powell, and other legal initiatives make a convincing case in the public mind that the election was fraudulent. They meanwhile pursue legal channels.
2. If it goes all the way, the Supreme Court may rule that the results were indeed fraudulent. The right has a 5-3 majority there, with Roberts as a swing vote. If they are given a reasonable argument, the benefit of the doubt is likely to go Trump’s way.
3. Trump wins.
But even if they do not:
4. By the Constitution, state legislatures have sole discretion to appoint electors. The critical states that are in dispute mostly have Republican majorities in their legislatures: Michigan, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Arizona. These legislatures can refuse to recognize the vote tally as legitimate and either send no electors or send their own.
If there is a strong public impression that the vote was fraudulent, they might have the political will to do so. At a certain point, if they do not, they risk being “primaried” by irate members of their own party. All they need is plausible justification. This the Giuliani and Powell initiatives may have already given them.
5. With legislature-approved slates of electors from any three of the disputed states, including Pennsylvania, the Electoral College votes for Trump.
Trump wins.
6. If three legislatures simply fail to certify the vote, or if their action in doing this is disputed, the Electoral College is deadlocked—or its vote is disputed.
7. Congress therefore may act. By the Constitution, it votes for president directly. Each state delegation to congress gets one vote. The Republicans control more state delegations than the Democrats.
8. Trump wins.
Of course, there will be violence in the streets if this happens. It would all be an alarming precedent. On the other hand, we seem to have no options at this point that do not involve provoking violence in the streets and alarming precedents. We already have violence in the streets from the left; let Biden in, and the right joins them. Let one fraudulent election get by, and you cannot expect any future elections to be clean
'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.
Slightly Later in Canada
This blog has been relatively quiescent recently. For one thing, your humble correspondent has been busy with other work. For another, things have been so insane that comment seems superfluous. “Oh My God!” seems more or less sufficient. On Trump’s court challenges, I do not have the expertise: that’s for lawyers. The world is full of lawyers, and I’m not one of them.
Mad as things are south of 49, it is easy to forget about matters right here in Canada. It looks to me as though the Trudeau government is in serious trouble on the vaccine front. Canadians are about to watch as the US and the UK, most of Europe, India, Brazil, Russia, China, the Middle East get vaccinated, while Canada stays in shutdown, and Canadians continue to die of COVID. The effects on the Canadian economy may also be devastating.
The government will insist that this is unavoidable, because we do not have our own production facilities. Perhaps this is true; even so, people will blame the government.
The government boasts that it has pre-ordered more vaccine per capita than any other country: nine times what is needed to vaccinate every single Canadian. But this is useless if every Canadian needs only one vaccination, and the pre-orders are fulfilled after all previous orders are filled. Apparently the Canadian government started late to make pre-orders, and overcompensated by over-ordering. Simply wasting a lot of money.
The present government seems spectacularly incompetent. Irresponsible children playing at being leaders. They have made an alarming hash of our foreign affairs, and they have been spending money recklessly. Yet they are still in power because we have also been saddled with an incompetent opposition. Both the Conservatives and the NDP seem to have been seized by sinister forces who have gotten rid of their most effective leaders (Mulcair and Bernier) in rigged leadership races.
In our own quiet way, Canada seems to be in at least as much trouble as is the US right now. And the underlying cause is the same: a poison has infected our “elites.” It is, I think, the poison of postmodernism, the abandonment of all principle.
COVID is at least helping to expose the problem.
'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.
November 27, 2020
Sky News Australia on Hydroxychloraquine
November 26, 2020
The Reckoning?
God gave Noah the rainbow sign ...
It seems unambiguous to me that what is going on in the US currently is a struggle of good and evil. With evil seemingly triumphant. Yes, the Democrats and the contemporary left are simply morally depraved. Their postmodern essence is the denial of the possibility of either good or evil; and a denial that there is such a thing as truth or reality. For them, it is only “the narrative.” And the only response to crime is to blame the police. Their spirit is the spirit of destruction.
This tips into an inexorable and accelerating downward spiral, and we are witnessing it. Things are falling apart in civil society now at breakneck speed: the censorship, the denial of free speech, the endemic racism, the open hatred of “whites” or “cisgender males,” the devolution into tribalism, the open corruption, the Hunter Bidens and the Jeffrey Epsteins and nobody seeming to care; the random destruction in the streets of the largest cities, and nobody seeming to care. Actual calls now for dissidents to be arrested—Republicans, anyone who worked for Trump. Against, of course, the relentless but unmentionable backdrop of unrestricted abortion, with the current governor of Virginia, or Whoopi Goldberg on TV, going so far as to openly endorse post-birth infanticide.
Joe Biden? A testament to the truth of Hannah Arendt’s phrase, “the banality of evil.”
Already little is left of American democracy. If you do not have free speech or a free press, and you cannot trust your elections, democracy is not the correct term.
COVID-19 is of course a separate matter, an Act of God. But COVID-19 might be a judgement from God. Not just on the US; I do not imagine China will come out of this better than the USA. I read the waters are symbolically rising again behind the Three Gorges Dam.
Everywhere the cities are burning. What will be left?
Today, a friend taught me a Jewish tradition: you go to the Book of Psalms, and meditate daily on the Psalm one number beyond your current age. This is the psalm that best advises you for the year. Supposedly this is personal; but my psalm sounds as though it might apply for all of us:
Let God arise!
Let his enemies be scattered!
Let them who hate him also flee before him.
As smoke is driven away,
so drive them away.
As wax melts before the fire,
so let the wicked perish at the presence of God.
… A father of the fatherless, and a defender of the widows,
is God in his holy habitation.
God sets the lonely in families.
He brings out the prisoners with singing,
but the rebellious dwell in a sun-scorched land.
… God is to us a God of deliverance.
To Yahweh, the Lord, belongs escape from death.
But God will strike through the head of his enemies,
the hairy scalp of such a one as still continues in his guiltiness.
The Lord said, “I will bring you again from Bashan,
I will bring you again from the depths of the sea,
that you may crush them, dipping your foot in blood,
that the tongues of your dogs may have their portion from your enemies.”
Forgive me for pointing out that this is one more example of how the Bible is not OK with "I'm OK, You're OK" morality.
'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.
Remember Hydroxychloraquine?
This is NOT a double-blind test with controls; it is a retrospective analysis. Nevertheless, it at least finally tests the actual regimen originally claimed to work. And it seems to show that, yes, itworks.
So how to explain the fact that we have not seen that gold-standard, double-blind test with controls that we need? How many have died who need not have?
November 23, 2020
People of the Lie
Some people wear masks. Some people seem to speak, not spontaneously, but on a sort of internal tape delay. Their faces tend to fix in one expression: as often as not, a permanent smile; sometimes a neutral expression. There often seems to be a strain around the jaw. They are consciously controlling their faces, and it takes some effort.
If they laugh, you can hear that it is feigned, something they are imitating, not something from within themselves.
If they are not necessarily bad people, they are obviously people who feel they have something to hide. They have some sense of guilt; this may be deserved or undeserved.
Technically, these are “hypocrites.” The word, New Testament Greek, literally means an actor, or one who is wearing a stage mask, as Greek actors did.
M. Scott Peck calls them “People of the Lie.”
The one certain thing is that you cannot trust them.
A Journal of the Plague Year
The year 2020 is not getting any saner. Toronto is going back into lockdown for 28 days, which will wipe out the Christmas shopping season and probably assure that all the independent brick-and-mortar retailers go bankrupt. It is generally only during the Christmas season that they ever turn a profit, and that is gone now.
Winter kicked off yesterday, after an eerily warm fall, with a blizzard.
Today, also news that the Oxford-Astro-Zeneca vaccine is 70% effective, adding to the Moderna and Pfizer entries. We now seem poised for a mad race to get everybody vaccinated before everybody gets the virus and dies. Latest estimates are that we will all be living with this crisis for another year; still masking and distancing. Hope that is wrong, but the experience so far is that everything has taken much longer than predicted.
Things are wild on the US election front as well. Several states are set to certify their votes today; in the meantime, Sidney Powell has been fired from the Trump legal team. This looks grim for Trump because she was the one claiming she would “release the kraken.” If Trump is pulling away from her, it sounds as though there is no kraken.
Jordan Peterson, back from near-death due to tranquilizer addiction, has just announced a sequel to his Twelve Rules for Life. It is titled, ominously, Beyond Order.
We will long remember this year. But probably not fondly.
