Stephen Roney's Blog, page 232

Here's a Hopeful Analysis

Not by a doctor or a scientist, but he quotes a lot of sources,

He says COVID is dying.


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

Ever Dance with the Devil in the Pale Moonlight?

Here’s a flash of insight I had today.

Probably self-evident, and obvious to everyone. I might have even thought it myself, before. But it felt like a flash of insight today.

The real value of the present uncanny complex of crises, perhaps the divine point, is that it reveals emphatically who the bad guys are. It seems as though, quite consistently, the bad guys are reacting to the crisis by becoming more blatantly evil. It is as though the zombie hordes have suddenly become illuminated by a flash of lightning, and we see them plainly.

There’s a virus spreading, killing the old and infirm? Great. Now’s our opportunity to pour into the streets. Let’s spread the virus, break things, loot, tear down statues, and demand the elimination of the police. That’s clear enough, isn’t it?

There’s a virus spreading? It’s time for the whole world to come together against this common enemy? Great. Now’s our opportunity to really subjugate Hong Kong. Why not invade India? Let’s threaten Australia, and make claims on Vladivostok.

We have a health emergency? People are dying? Great. Now’s our chance to make big profits by suppressing information on any inexpensive measures and drugs that would combat the virus. Instead, we’ll promote new drugs that are under patent. The more people get sick, the more money we make.

Evil has turned and looked us straight in the face, leering. It no longer allows you the luxury of deniability. If you do not stand against it, you have signed the Devil’s own bargain, and by now you must know you have. As does everyone else.

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Spare a Thought for the Christians of Montenegro

Christianity and religion are under attack everywhere...


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News of the Apocalypse

Of course, you saw this coming. Who didn't see this coming? Bubonic plague has broken out in China.

Meantime, Brazil's president Bolsinaro has tested positive for the coronavirus.

Claims are that the hail the size of baseballs that was pelting Wuhan a few days ago has spikes and looks like a model of the coronavirus.

Up next: one third of all the seas turn to blood.

Film at eleven.


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Andrew Klavan on Trump's Mount Rushmore Speech

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The Tides of American History

Otto Eduard Leopold, Prince of Bismarck, Duke of Lauenburg, Chancellor of the German Empire, and wit.
Otto von Bismarck is supposed to have said “God has a special providence for fools, drunkards, and the United States of America.”

Time and again, it looks true. Speaking as a Canadian, I am necessarily astonished in some dark recess of my consciousness that this mad reckless experiment in unchecked mob rule, without benefit of monarchy or the continuity of legitimate British authority, has somehow not yet collapsed.

Yet it seems as though, every time, just as they are about to make a perfect hash of it, some improbable figure emerges and pulls it all off. Beginning, of course, with George Washington, a mediocre soldier and by all accounts no intellect, who should by rights have died at Great Meadows in 1754.

Trump begins to look like such a figure. His presidency looks as though it might be transformational.

And, that said, hasn’t an odd pattern emerged? Every forty years, counting backwards, as one always should in Wonderland, America seems to get a transformational president out of nowhere.

Mount Rushmore, helpfully modernized by a Trump staffer in a tweet.
2020—Trump, the reality TV star who had never held public office.

1980—Reagan, who won the Cold War, rewrote the book on government economics, and restored American optimism. A movie actor; reputedly, again, not very bright.

1940—FDR, who won the Second World War, defeated Nazism, guided the US through the Depression, rewrote the book on government economics, and transformed the modern American left. By tradition, he should have been leaving office in 1940.

1900—Teddy Roosevelt, who ushered America into the Industrial Age and established it as a world power, and initiated the new government creed of “progressivism.” Not to mention conservationism. An accidental president, who assumed office through assassination.

1860—Abraham Lincoln, who ended slavery, defeated the Confederate secession, and essentially founded the Republican Party. Just a backwoods lawyer with little formal education.

Definitely something going on here, isn’t there?

There even seem to be lesser bumps at the twenty-year interval. 2000 was Bush 43 and the war on terror. 1960 was Kennedy and the Cuban missile crisis. 1920 was, roughly, Wilson, the First World War, the Fourteen Points, and the abortive League of Nations. These off-year intervals seem to begin with promise of greatness, but somehow they are aborted.

The one essential figure in American history? The founder of the illuminated line of imams?
But walking back before 1860, it breaks down. 1820? Should have been transformational. That was the presidency of James Monroe. A good time, by all accounts, “The Era of Good Feelings,” and American hegemony asserted over the entire New World with the “Monroe Doctrine.” But still—does Monroe stand out in the proximate company of Jackson or Jefferson?

Perhaps in those days, God was busy elsewhere. Or perhaps the rhythm changed with the Civil War.

Or, perhaps, there was some glitch or reset in the matrix somewhere between 1820 and the Civil War. Everybody knows there was a reboot of Western civilization in 1848. That might have been it.


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The Garden of American Heroes - and the Garden of Canadian Heroes

The text of President Trump’s order to create a National Garden of American Heroes is now available online.

These are clearly to be new statues, not just a place to move statues that are now being pulled down. Some figures to be memorialized are actually named:

John Adams,
Susan B. Anthony,
Clara Barton,
Daniel Boone,
Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain,
Henry Clay,
Davy Crockett,
Frederick Douglass,
Amelia Earhart,
Benjamin Franklin,
Billy Graham,
Alexander Hamilton,
Thomas Jefferson,
Martin Luther King, Jr.,
Abraham Lincoln,
Douglas MacArthur,
Dolley Madison,
James Madison,
Christa McAuliffe,
Audie Murphy,
George S. Patton, Jr.,
Ronald Reagan,
Jackie Robinson,
Betsy Ross,
Antonin Scalia,
Harriet Beecher Stowe,
Harriet Tubman,
Booker T. Washington,
George Washington,
Orville and Wilbur Wright.

“The statue or work of art shall be a lifelike or realistic representation of that person, not an abstract or modernist representation.”

“The National Garden should be located on a site of natural beauty that enables visitors to enjoy nature, walk among the statues, and be inspired to learn about great figures of America’s history. The site should be proximate to at least one major population center.”

And the idea is to have it ready for opening for the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

Brilliant stuff. It is tempting to suggest other figures for the park, but I have a better and more pressing idea.

Canada, far more than the United States, needs something like this. We need a sculpture park of Canadian heroes to fight not just the current hysteria of statue-tipping, but the longer-term corrosive effects of multiculturalism. We need it to establish a sense of our national identity.

I know the prefect location, too: Gananoque, Ontario. That puts it equidistant from Montreal, Toronto, and Ottawa, the capital and Canada’s two largest cities. It would be easily accessible by ebike paths from each. Gananoque is already a tourist destination, the “Canadian Gateway to the Thousand Islands,” so it has the infrastructure. And the natural scenery is both magnificent and characteristically Canadian, a spur of the Canadian Shield.

Now the best part: coming up with a lots of figures to be commemorated.

Here are the ones that immediately come to mind:

Leif Erikson
Jacques Cartier
Samuel de Champlain
John Cabot
Dollard des Ormeaux
Madeleine de Vercheres
Tecumseh
Joseph Brant
Molly Brant
Jean de Brebeuf
Frontenac
Radisson and Groseilleirs
Joseph Montferrand
Wolfe and Montcalm
Guy Carleton
Isaac Brock
Pierre d'Iberville
Laura Secord
Baldwin and Lafontaine
Joseph Howe
Georges Cartier
Sir John A. Macdonald
Thomas D'Arcy McGee
Sam Steele
Arthur Currie
Billy Bishop
Bill Barker
Raymond Collishaw
Tommy Douglas
Joey Smallwood
Leonard Cohen
Alexander Graham Bell
Stephen Leacock
Lucy Maud Montgomery
Robert W. Service
Wilfrid Laurier
Jeanne Mance Thomas Chandler Haliburton
Alexander Mackenzie (the explorer)
Louis Hebert
David Thompson
George Vancouver
Pierre Trudeau
Maurice Richard
Sir Charles Tupper
Margeuerite de Bourgeoys
Etienne Brule
Membertou
La Salle
Andre Bessette
Kateri Tekakwitha
Pauline Johnson
Donnacona
Timothy Eaton
Laval
Louis Jolliet
Simon Fraser
Tom Thompson
Isaac Jogues
Gabrielle Roy ShanawdithitTom Longboat
Henry Hudson
Lord Franklin
Terry Fox
De Salaberry
Roberval
Pierre Berton
Marshall McLuhan
Oscar Peterson
Banting and Best
Gord Downie Stan RogersLionel ConacherGordie Howe
La Bolduc
J.A. Bombardier
Samuel Cunard
Punch Dickens
Albert Lacombe
Wop MayHowie Morenz
Francis Pegahmagabow
Wilder Penfield
Hans Selye
Ernest Thompson Seton
Georges Vanier
Come to think of it, Canada just has many heroes. We ought to honour them.

Some names not on the list: Louis Riel, William Lyon Mackenzie, Louis-Joseph Papineau. I’m excluding figures who did not help to build Canada, but tried to tear it down. Those still living are also excluded.

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Trump at Mount Rushmore

I believe that a great speech can make a difference. And if I am any judge, Trump’s speech before Mt. Rushmore was a great one, that may be historic.

The ultimate showman, he chose his backdrop perfectly.

The key to a great speech is not at all complicated. A great speech is a speech that states some obvious truth that nobody has been saying, and states it plainly. It is that simple, and it is exceedingly rare. A classic example is Reagan referring to the Soviet Union as the “Evil Empire.” Of course it was, and nobody was supposed to say so. Or when, in 1987, Reagan stood in front of the Berlin Wall, and said, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” Everyone was shocked at his “extremism”; you were not supposed to say such obvious things.

Two years later, the wall was torn down.

The most famous sentence of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I have a dream” speech was similarly a simple truth that no one was speaking: “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character.” Nobody was saying it, yet no sane man could disagree.

The true power of Churchill’s great wartime speeches was that he never sugarcoated anything, and he never told a lie. He always spoke the plain truth.

“We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. You ask, what is our policy? I will say: It is to wage war, by sea, land, and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us; to wage war against a monstrous tyranny never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be.”

But the critical thing is that he called out evil by its name. So did Reagan.

This is what Trump did at Mount Rushmore.

Scott Adams did not like the speech. “The least unifying speech I’ve ever seen on my whole (deleted) life.” The Democrats and the mainstream media have targeted it as “dark” and “divisive.” When I Google "Trump Mount Rushmore speech" this morning, the first results I get are "The 28 most outrageous lines from Trump's Mount Rushmore Speech" (CNN); "Donald Trump Tries to Drag America Backward" (CNN); "Trump Pushes Racial Division at Mount Rushmore Speech" (Time); "Trump Uses Mount Rushmore Speech to Deliver Divisive Culture War Message" (NYTimes).

But this is not a time or a place for reconciliation. Churchill did not speak of reconciliation after Dunkirk; Reagan did not speak of reconciliation with the Soviet Union over the Berlin Wall. One cannot reconcile good and evil. If this is divisive, that divisiveness was introduced by the mobs pulling down the statues of their fellow citizens’ heroes, refusing to stand for the national anthem, declaring the entire system racist and saying it must be torn down, by violence if necessary. It is pure comic absurdity then to term Trump “divisive.”

Trump said the mobs tearing down statues were “bad, evil people.” That is calling a spade a spade. He referred to the current far left as “fascism.” He called their agenda a “cultural revolution.” He said that their intent was to “destroy this civilization.” He referred to “a merciless campaign to wipe out our history, defame our heroes, erase our values, and indoctrinate our children.” “This is the very definition of totalitarianism.” “Every child of every colour, born and unborn, is made in the holy image of God…” “We must demand that our children again be taught … our founding ideals…not to rip down their heritage, but to live up to their heritage.”

These are indeed strong words. Which is to say, it was a strong speech. They are all true, obviously true, and nobody was supposed to say them. By saying them, Trump may have opened the dam of repression.

Adams thought the President seemed “low energy,” and looked tired. I think, again, he is exactly wrong. Trump struck just the right tone. It was a stark contrast to the tone that so annoyed me in the recent Canadian Conservative leadership debate, in which candidates kept mouthing meaningless platitudes with a tone of false urgency. If you are going to tell the truth, and it is important, you speak instead in calm, measured, authoritative tones. No emotional flourishes. Churchill would have done so; and this is what Trump did.

The one essential act to defeat evil is to call it out to its face. This is why, in an exorcism, one must get the demon to admit his presence and say his name. Solzhenitsyn expressed this truth when he said that, if at any time anyone in the old Soviet Union had awakened one day determined to tell the truth, the entire structure might have collapsed by nightfall.

We shall see. If I am right, things are going to swiftly go against the social justice mobs from this point.


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eBikes

Here’s a vision of the future: ebikes. In a city, they avoid traffic jams and the problems of parking; they are non-polluting; and they are a lot cheaper than owning a car. Setting up a fleet of ebikes rentable by the hour would probably be a lot faster than maintaining a public transit system, and a lot healthier. Not only do they avoid the close quarters and enclosed spaces during a COVID epidemic; they give a measure of healthy exercise.

Did you know that the average car trip is only 5.5 miles? That could easily be done on an ebike, and save a lot of money on gas.

Why not close some downtown streets to vehicular traffic, and allow only streetcars and ebikes?

And how about dedicated ebike trails in the countryside? How about a trans-Canada trail suitable for ebikes? Unlike public transit, with this even the very poor could get out of the city and enjoy the wide open spaces. This could also revive a localized tourist industry that has been flagging since the early days of the automobile. It might be good for national unity to encourage people in this way to see and experience the rest of Canada. It would promote fitness and reduce health costs. And it would cut down on those notorious carbon emissions.




https://amzn.to/2VJb2xq


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The Immorality of Pacifism

Kitty Genovese.It is more or less reflexive to most of us to refer to conflicts as “misunderstandings,” and to assume or insist that there must be blame on both sides. After all, in the real world, there are no good guys and bad guys.

“Teach men not to rape,” is one common example of this cockeyed logic. The same logic makes pacifists think of themselves as morally superior.

There is indeed a risk in dehumanizing one’s opponent. That is a different issue, arising in a different situation. What if you are a third party, seeing two others involved in some conflict?

Our true moral responsibility is not to chide them both, but to side with the right. Consider the classic, extreme, example of Kitty Genovese, being raped and stabbed in an apartment stairwell. Did or did not her neighbours have a moral duty to call the police, or even step outside their doors to try to stop it?

Should they have instead scolded Genovese for failing to get along with the rapist?

If there is a serious conflict, it is naturally unlikely to be caused by a misunderstanding. People would have to be remarkably stupid to come to blows or worse over a mere misunderstanding; and if they did, the matter would necessarily be easily set to rights.

It is, on the other hand, necessarily likely that a conflict would arise because one party wants to take the rights of another, and believes they are powerful enough that they can. That is, someone is doing evil.

This, therefore, must be assumed to be the case whenever a conflict is encountered.

We do not always do so, because we are morally weak. It is always safer and easier to stay out of it. One could, after all, get hurt; one could end up another victim. But when we claim moral superiority for our pacifism, for our neutrality, we have drifted into settled vice.

History is immensely valuable, because it gives us objective and well-documented examples of social and of moral dilemmas. This is why history was always studied. When we look at history, do we find many conflicts in which both sides were on equally solid moral grounds, and it was all just a misunderstanding?

Surely everyone accepts that the Second World War was a case of good against evil. Surely everyone, too, given the current demands to pull down statues, understands that slavery was a pure moral evil, and it would have been immoral for the Union government to allow it to persist.

Similarly, the Cold War, with all its minor ancillaries, was in the end best summed up as Reagan boldly did, to much criticism at the time, as a struggle with an “evil empire.” Now that the conflict is over, we can surely see that clearly.

I dare to say that almost all past conflicts can, when clearly seen, be seen as a conflict between good and evil. Back to the Punic Wars, between a Roman republic and a Carthaginian mercantile empire that practiced child sacrifice. Or the Peloponnesian War, between the Athenian democracy and a Sparta that was, in effect, a proto-Fascist state.

Right now, I think we see a struggle of good against evil in the streets of America, and in the growing aggression of the Chinese Communist Party.

It is the eternal battle, and it is real.


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