Stephen Roney's Blog, page 225

Wargaming the Second American Civil War

While I would have scoffed at the idea a few years ago, the logic of the current situation in the US seems to raise the possibility of civil war. This idea does not originate with me; a lot of people are saying it on YouTube. The left has decided to deny and shut down public discourse. They have decided to impose their will by force. Those disadvantaged or oppressed by the demands of the left are then obliged to respond with force in turn.

This seems to have begun to happen with the current rioting. Guns and counter-demonstrators seem to have emerged.

The insistence by the left on untried mail-in balloting means that, unless one side or the other wins by a compelling margin, half the country will not see the results as legitimate. Again, if confidence in voting is subverted, violence will look like the only resort.

It seems to me the left is most likely to lose a civil conflict. They have thoroughly alienated police everywhere, surely, by scapegoating them and demanding they be defunded. Even assuming they succeed in dissolving or defanging police everywhere, they are still going to have a cadre of ex-policemen, trained and probably privately armed, with few warm feelings towards them.

Their power base is their control of the media and of education. But their control of the media is rapidly slipping, thanks to everyone now effectively having a video camera and a printing press. Their control of education is also vulnerable to the new technologies.

The brawling and rioting in the streets can go one of three ways: either it gets crushed by the authorities or the counter-protestors; or it overthrows the government; or it settles into a civil war. In the USA, with its traditions, and with an armed population, an undemocratic overthrow of the government does not seem possible without a prolonged civil war against it.

For a civil war, we need some geographical separation of sides. The left forms no natural contiguous territory: they are divided, on both coasts. Should both coasts rise in arms, they would not be able to coordinate. The right, naturally holding the central position, could pick off either in turn, able to shift their forces as needed. The right would also be sitting on the energy and the food supplies. The left, if it took the government, would still probably only hold sway in the cities. The situation would be like that of the Paris commune: they might nominally be in occupation of the government institutions, but they could be cut off from power, food, and communications.

Given these factors, I would have predicted that the left would not want to risk letting things come to blows. Yet they seem to be the side pushing hard to do so—the side that has begun to be violent. I can account for this only as a suicidal tendency. They are seeing their power slipping—they have lost their control over the media, and are perhaps in danger of losing their control over education. Not getting their will, they are throwing a self-destructive tantrum.

All that is necessary then for the good to succeed is that leaders on the right stay resolute, and not be frightened into appeasing without a fight. Sadly, this is looking like too high a bar for them.

'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.

Ave Maria at the White House

'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.

Which Side are You On?

The War in Heaven
It is shocking to think it, let alone say it, but at some point it becomes moral cowardice not to. Watching the Republican Convention alongside parallel images of the widespread rioting compellingly illustrates that the current American presidential election is a stark choice between good and evil.

We want to believe everything can be worked out by reasoned discussion. But one side will not permit reasoned discussion. They want to censor, to shout down, to compel. The situation is the situation at the Munich Conference of 1938: compromise is impossible. There are no shared values any longer, and no shared goals.

One side wants to tear it all down; one side denies there is such a thing as truth, or good. This is, simply, Satanic.

The speakers at the Republican Convention, by contrast, kept referring to religion, to God, to the right to life. Truth and Good are at least acknowledged here.

Like it or not, Trump is on God’s side.

This may come as some surprise. Donald Trump is not someone most would pick as a role model for their children. I would never have picked him for president. He shows little familiarity with theology, the Bible, or the way the religious talk. Nevertheless, as noted here before, this is just the sort of person Yahweh picks. He is a God of miracles.


'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.

Hallelujah at the White House

'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.

Jerry Falwell Jr.

Jesus and the woman taken in adultery

I am upset to see so many people, including fellow Christians, pile on in condemning Jerry Falwell Jr.

It upsets to have to look into this, in order to respond. Because it is all gossip, calumny, and detraction.

Falwell is accused of an odd sexual interest—enjoying watching his wife have sex with another man. He denies it. We are obliged to assume his innocence, in the first place. But even if he is guilty, guilty of what? Not of doing harm to any other human being. Nobody needs to be warned. Everything was consensual. Not of committing adultery. If his wife had sex with another man, he is the victim, not the perpetrator. Is he guilty of something if he knew about it, and forgave her, even covered it up? If he broke a commandment, which one?

And even if he did sin in some unspecified way, so what? If he were in our presence, and we thought he was unrepentant, it would be our fraternal duty to point this out. He is not in our presence. This also means he cannot defend himself against our accusations. And we are surely acting hypocritically; who among us is without some sexual sin? What did Jesus say about casting the first stone? Would we like others to be prying into our sexual lives in public?

This is all a matter between Falwell, his wife, and God.


'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.

New Belgian Study

Suggests that hydroxychloroquine indeed does work.


Dr. Campbell is nonplussed by the fact that other studies finding hydroxychloroquine NOT to work used a non-standard dosage.

Why? Why did it take so long to get a study using the standard recommended dosage? Why did none of the studies use the combination first reported to work, hydroxychloroquine combined with zinc and azithromycin, administered early in the course of the disease?

I think Dr. Campbell hints at it without saying: the problem is that hydroxychloroquine is readily available and cheap. Drug companies can't make much money on it, and if it works, it reduces the market for any new proprietary treatment, like remdezavir, that they come up with.

In other news, a British study finds another possible treatment: an extract of eucalyptus readily found in insect repellants.

Even if it's a miracle cure, God knows how long it will take to get that approved...




'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.

O'Toole's First Test

Derek Sloan
Only a day after Erin O’Toole won it, the Liberals and the media have sprung a snare for him that may well destroy his leadership of the Canadian Conservative Party.

They are demanding he throw one of his competitors in that race, Derek Sloan, out of caucus.

We will see, from how he handles this, whether O’Toole is a leader. The demand is outrageous on its face. His only good options are “no” or “hell no.” But either will take some spine.

The media and the Liberals want Sloan out primarily because, during his campaign, he put out a video saying Trudeau was botching his handling of the coronavirus, and asking whether Canada’s Chief Medical Officer, Theresa Tam, was working for Canada or for China. 
See it for yourself:

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=250111502808327

This is declared “racist,” because Tam was born in Hong Kong. The charge is obviously absurd: had you not known Tam was born in Hong Kong, would you learn it from Sloan’s video? His argument is substantive. If you object to it, you need to object to the points he makes. He is accusing her of toeing the line from the WHO, and the WHO of being in China’s pocket. Another Canadian doctor, Bruce Aylward, a WHO official, has also been accused of this. Nobody has declared that racist; Aylward is not ethnically Chinese.

It is racist to exempt Tam from such criticism on the basis of her place of origin or skin colour. This is what Sloan’s critics, and O’Toole’s, are demanding. They are the racists, and O’Toole ought to call them out.

Had Sloan raised the issue of her place of origin, that too would have been legitimate. It ought not to be assumed that an immigrant has divided loyalty, but it is fair to suspect it. I know several fellow Canadians who have taken American citizenship. They reliably tell me and other Canadians that their true allegiance has not changed, they did so only for practical reasons.

It is discriminatory and absurd to suppose that Chinese-Canadians are peculiarly immune to such considerations. Indeed, I know Chinese-Canadians personally who are not.

If O’Toole attempts to remove Sloan from caucus for raising legitimate concerns and saying things that are objectively true, it will have dire consequences for Canadian liberties and Canadian democracy. It will also be a dire strategic error: pay that first bribe, and the Danes know where to come for more. You are not going to win anyone over.

To win the leadership, O’Toole made a direct appeal to social conservatives, promising them a place in his party. Their support—the support of Sloan’s voters—went to him on the final ballot as a result. He owes them. If he now turns on them, it will be a historic double-cross rivalling Peter MacKay’s cynical betrayal of David Orchard’s followers. Some people, like me, will never forget or forgive something like that.

Sloan also won 15% of the vote on the first ballot. A rookie MP, his personal following probably added nothing to that. Moreover, he was splitting the social conservative vote with another candidate, Leslyn Lewis. If O’Toole turns on Sloan, he alienates a large portion of his own party. So much for party unity.

And the social conservatives have an alternative. If O’Toole or the PCs push Sloan out of caucus, why wouldn’t he declare himself a member of Maxime Bernier’s PPC? Suddenly they have a voice in parliament, and Bernier has a high-profile Ontario lieutenant.

O’Tooke should respond to the attacks with “The Conservative Party, unlike the Liberals, is the party of free and open discussion. The leader does not even have the power to eject a member from caucus. We welcome a diversity of views. We are diverse as Canada is diverse. We are a home to all Canadians, and we listen to all. If you are in favour of honest discussion, you will find a home here too.”


'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.

The Trump Agenda

Donald Trump has released his agenda for a second term. It is worth looking at, since Trump, unlike other politicians, really tries to keep his promises.

He promises a vaccine for COVID-19 by the end of 2020, and a “return to normal” in 2021. This sounds plausible. Following fast on Russia’s “Sputnik V,” India has now announced they expect to have a vaccine available in 70 days—in early November. Competing companies are now talking about how much they will charge for their vaccine. Things do seem to be converging on the year-end.

In the meantime, for whatever reason, the actual rate of death from COVID has plummeted, even in places where infections have been rising. Dr. John Campbell suggests this may be up to social distancing, face masks, and so forth. Or it may be because we are actually approaching herd immunity of some sort, or it may be that the virus is mutating into something less dangerous. The fact is, viruses tend to die away regularly, without our understanding why.

Trump comes down strongly for law and order. The Democrats have chosen to make this a campaign issue; I think it works heavily in Trump’s favour. Amid cries to “defund the police,” Trump says “defend the police.” “Fully fund and hire more police and law enforcement officers.” “Increase criminal penalties for assaults on law enforcement officers.” I am astounded that anyone ever thought defunding the police in the face of widespread rioting was a good idea. But as the rioting goes on and on, surely most people are getting fed up.

The Democrats have also, I think, been foolish enough to cede the pacifist position to Trump. They did this by freezing out and disowning Tulsi Gabbard on her strongly pacifist platform during the primaries. Now they cannot pretend to be the peace party. Trump can wisely exploit this. After decades of war, Americans are weary. “Stop endless wars and bring our troops home.”

But the strongest part of the platform is education: a pledge to “provide school choice for every child in America,” and to “teach American exceptionalism.” This would at a stroke vastly improve America’s future. I hope, if America does this, that the pressure for Canadian politicians to do so as well would be irresistible.

It is hard to see how the federal government will actually be able to do this. Education is a state and local responsibility. The No Child Left Behind Act in 2002 attempted to impose national standards by tying federal funding to compliance; the same might be tried here.

This may also help his re-election chances by shaking black voters away from the Democrats. This seems to be his strategy. Scott Adams is no doubt right to say that the public schools are the cause of all perceived anti-black racism in the US, and of black disadvantage. Because schools are funded locally, schools in poor areas get less resources, making it harder for poor students to get ahead. With a voucher system, students would no longer be obliged to go to the local school.

Aside from that, competition and consumer choice is bound to improve performance.

School choice also allows parents to select a school that teaches their values. To avoid sectarianism, in an increasingly diverse society, the public schools end up teaching no values at all; the results are predictably disastrous. We have been seeing the results lately in the streets.

It is a good and, on the whole, a realistic agenda.


'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.

O'Toole for the Win

Erin O’Toole is the new leader of the Canadian Conservative Party.

Not a stunningly good choice; but then, neither was Stephen Harper in his day. I think O’Toole was the best choice in the available field. The larger issue is that the contest looked rigged from the beginning to be a coronation for Peter MacKay. Other prominent candidates backed off from a run, as if either bribed or threatened. It looked as though O’Toole was allowed to run only for the semblance of a race; a mid-tier candidate, not thought to be a serious challenger, just plausible enough. Like the Washington Generals. So it looks like a deserved kick back against the party corruption to have given him the win. And against the contest’s organizers, and against the other candidates who backed out of the race.

O’Toole was the grassroots’ way to resist the party elite.

And even if he was not top-tier, O’Toole was a better pick than MacKay; and a better pick than the other two, inexperienced candidates. MacKay has no principles; he won the old PC leadership by cutting a backroom deal, then double-crossing his benefactor within two months. He also seemed to knife Andrew Scheer in the back; somebody showed up at a Scheer event during the last election campaign with a MacKay sign. That did not feel like a voice from the crowd; MacKay had been out of politics for a while, and nobody was hankering for him to come back. It looked like a paid political stunt. And an act of disloyalty during a campaign.

After the election, MacKay sank Scheer in a press interview by saying he had “failed to score on an open net” and that his views on gay marriage and abortion “hung around his neck like a stinking albatross.” Those images are too vivid not to have been carefully scripted; and not by MacKay himself, who does not have any way with words. It looked like calculated political assassination. And not over any disagreement on policy; it looked like pure personal ambition.

Such behavior, and such politicians, ought not to be rewarded with office.

Had MacKay won, party unity would also have been hard to achieve. Scheer loyalists would have reason to hate him; and so would social conservatives, whose views he had described as “stinking.” The entire right wing of the party might rightly be alienated, as he ran as an unabashed “Red Tory.” Quebec would have been disaffected, given his lack of interest in learning French.

I can at least imagine O’Toole as prime minister; I could never imagine Scheer in the role. And the thought of MacKay in the office was disturbing. O’Toole at least has the mein of a fighter, and a military background that suits that persona. If he’s no Trump, perhaps he’s not a low card either.
'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.

I Was Afraid of This

Chora Church in Istanbul has been converted into a mosque. This is one of the most historic churches in Christendom.


'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.