Stephen Roney's Blog, page 237

An Eleven-Card Hand That May Turn Out to Be Trump

Trump's proposed G-11The “D-10” idea, which I have heard Indian media advocating as a British initiative, seems to have another supporter. Donald Trump just proposed the upcoming G7 summit be expanded to eleven: the ten democracies cited, Japan, Canada, the US, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Australia, South Korea, and India, plus Russia. Almost the D-10 concept. 
Why add Russia? That may have to do with India. India looks like a critical partner here, breaking up the BRICS and naturally supplanting China as a manufacturing hub. But Russia and India have had a special relationship since the Cold War. Extending the invitation to Russia as well may make the alliance more attractive to India.

At the same time, India’s influence may make the deal more likely to appeal to Russia. Trump might well hope to coax Putin into the club. Perhaps improbable, but worth trying: that would be a diplomatic coup reminiscent of Nixon’s coaxing of China away from Russia back in the 1970s. It would more or less literally surround China and deprive it of its only militarily significant ally.

For all Putin’s adventurism, and all the false rumours about interference in the American elections, Russia is currently a declining power with about the economic heft of Italy, driven back into the ropes by the low price of oil. If they want to continue to swagger, they cannot afford to make a wrong move. Do they really want to band with China while the rest of the world is turning against them?

And Putin, the old KGB man, is just the guy to pull such an ace out of his sleeve. Eurasia was always at war with Eastasia. There is an obvious possible payoff for Russia, should an actual shooting war come, or should the Chinese government implode. They could then, without interference from the other powers, now their allies, and basically constituting everyone else who might otherwise object, sponsor an independent Manchuria. Giving them in return guaranteed access to that eternal grail of Russian foreign policy, an ice-free winter port. There is no plausible comparable territorial upside to an alliance with China against the rest of the group, even if Russia plus China could stand against them. And a Russia that merely stood aloof might be uncomfortably irrelevant. No swagger in that.

No harm, then, in extending this olive branch. Trump knows a possible deal when he sees one.

There is just a chance that, by doing so, he could end this new Cold War with China before it starts.

China, surrounded and without allies, would not dare to start a shooting war. And it would be unable to compete economically against an alliance fully self-sufficient in terms of resources, as India replaced it as a centre of high-tech manufacturing.


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

Maybe It Really Is the Devil's Work

Just when I was going to say Antifa...


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

The D10

The G-10?
Did China make a major mistake in moving a few thousand troops across the Line of Actual Control into Indian territory?

It seems clear from clips from Indian media that the Indians are now mad as hornets. The one power on Earth large enough to threaten China on land, and now they are an enemy.

Remember BRICS? China seemed to be part of a coalescing informal economic alliance that challenged the G7: Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa. The league of emerging powers.

Now India seems interested instead in a British idea to expand the G7 into the “D10”: an alliance of ten leading democracies. Britain, Canada, the US, Italy, Germany, France, Japan—the G7—plus India, South Korea, and Australia. The key idea is that together they could meet one another’s high tech needs without relying on any Chinese components. Supply lines thus secured.

Yet it seems to me this might serve as the nucleus for a larger grouping of the world’s democracies; a possible rival for the UN that would actually have a unifying principle and be able to get things done.

One early order of business might be to create a unified health secretariat, to replace the failed WHO. Second order of business: recognize Taiwan, and bring them in as a member. See how China likes that—a suitable response for their effective annexation of Hong Kong. Third order of business: preference for fellow democracies in matters of foreign aid. Fourth order of business: mutual defense pact. Equivalent to NATO, which coalesced to counter the old Soviet Union. Fifth order of business: preferential trade agreement; “free trade.” This could help establish the new, more secure supply lines needed to replace China, and re-integrate the UK into a larger trading bloc to replace the EU.

Taking all of these measures should also create a major incentive for other nations to become democratic.

We may be seeing a new world order emerging.


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

Who the Devil is Behind the Riots?

NYC Draft Riots, 1863.
The current mad rioting across the US seems to demonstrate the reality of the Devil. It looks as though it is organized; yet it cannot be easily accounted for by any human agency. Therefore, the hypothesis that there is some independent malicious spiritual consciousness interfering in affairs. 
There are reports of mysterious pallets of bricks left in prominent public places for mob use; of masked men with umbrellas smashing windows to encourage looting. There is a mysterious gap in the original video that triggered the protests…

The nominal cause for all the unrest is that apparent murder of George Floyd, captured on video. It is supposedly Black Lives Matter, or the black community more generally, demanding justice.

But justice was already apparently being served. The policeman seen killing Floyd had already been arrested and charged with murder. Moreover, the violent protests that we are now seeing are probably ending more black lives, devastating black neighbourhoods, reinforcing police presumptions that black people are violent and lawless, and suggesting to the public the need for more police and greater police powers. If the black community is doing this as a community, they are working against their own interests.

This is itself a hallmark of Satan’s work; that his followers work to their own destruction. But we also see videos online of blacks loudly protesting the looting and violence. And many if not most of the rioters have white skin.

A more plausible explanation is that the rioting, whatever happened to spark it, is driven by general frustration at the long lockdown, desperation at loss of employment, a feeling that the experts and the government have messed up and behaved callously during the epidemic. Yet if this is the impetus, the rioting and looting are again counterproductive. They are perfectly calculated to cause a new outbreak of the virus, forcing us all back into lockdown for longer. And justifying the government in not trusting the people to make their own decisions.

Some of the news media are apparently blaming it all on “white supremacists.” It might indeed fit their agenda, by discrediting blacks. But this presumes a massive, coordinated false flag operation, involving moving large numbers of people into places where they do not live, and having them all chant and spray-paint only slogans they disagree with—an improbable conspiracy theory, and certainly vastly beyond the capabilities of any existing “white supremacist” organization to pull off all across the country on a day’s notice. At least as any kind of organized group, they number only a couple of thousand at most, and these riots are breaking out in cities all over the country.

Some, including the governor of Minnesota, suggest foreign provocateurs are behind it all. This sounds reasonable to some, no doubt, because of current tensions with China. But as with white supremacists, the numbers of foreign agents and resources likely available seems beyond the realm of possibility. As a general principle, I doubt foreign intelligence services really account for much. By their nature, they amount to a group of bureaucrats operating without supervision. What happens when you put together a large group of bureaucrats and remove any supervision?

Nothing.

If individual agents or cells ever do get up to anything, the secrecy generally means they end up operating at cross-purposes, most often for their own narrow self-interests.

And “provocateurs” can only ever be a partial explanation. People must have a predisposition to be “provoked.”

Some, of course, blame the police for it all—it is all, including the killing of George Floyd, an assertion of police bullying. If they only kept the police away from the protesters, similarly, all would be well. Police themselves have not been helping this perception—at one point, they arrested a black CNN crew member on camera.

Yet policemen and police chiefs across the country quickly condemned the original killing. If some policemen have an attitude problem, it does not seem to be an organized or coordinated thing.

The likeliest explanation seems to be that Antifa are behind this. If Antifa is, as claimed, an anti-fascist organization, this would again be counter-productive. Chaos in the streets is a demand for Fascism. But I think it is clear that Antifa is not now, and has never been, an anti-Fascist organization. Rather, it is a Fascist organization seeking power.

If Antifa is behind the curtain, this too would involve moving people in large numbers into neighbourhoods where they do not live—Antifa’s membership is white and middle class. But they at least seem large enough, wealthy enough, and organized enough to make this possible.

It would not be surprising, either, if Antifa were getting funding from some foreign power.

Perhaps the upshot of these riots needs to be a concerted investigation by the FBI into Antifa.

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

The Truth of No Truth

Frank Turek
It must be tough to be a Christian apologist or professional debater, like William Lane Craig or Ravi Zacharias. You can have your arguments well researched, as Craig certainly does; but even so, sooner or later someone is going to come at you with something you had not thought of. And you can be left flat-footed.

I fear that tends to happen with Frank Turek. He is not that well-versed in the philosophy. He seems to get flummoxed. When he gets flummoxed, he will not admit it, but resorts to rhetorical tricks.

The person who sincerely seeks truth, wherever that search may lead, is a Christian. Only such a person shows true faith in God. The person who does not sincerely seek truth is not a Christian. You don’t get to be a Christian just by saying so. Frank Turek turns out not to be a Christian.

In a YouTube video I watched, an audience member suggested a possible response to the claim that postmodernism is self-contradictory. Instead of saying “all rules have exceptions,” the postmodernist can say, “all rules have exceptions—except this one.” Unfortunately, Turek simply denounced the statement as “too stupid to answer” and suggested calling the postmodernist who proposed it “poopy-pants.”

Thanks for claiming to speak in my behalf as a Christian, Frank Turek.

Let me respond, then.

The phrase “all rules have exceptions, except this one” to begin with, is not really to the point. A theist or other absolutist could assent to it; a rule can be absolute in principle and still have defined exceptions, or a defined context in which it is true. The Law of Gravity, for example, does not apply in dreams.

The real postmodern position that stands in opposition to theism is “there is no truth.” That is why they speak of “narratives,” and “my truth.” They might say instead, “truth is subjective.” Same meaning. So, rephrase the statement as “there is no truth, except this one.” If you prefer, “truth is subjective, except for this truth.”

But using “this” might be a little misleading. What is “this” in this sentence?

Try to replace it with what it refers to and you immediately get an infinite regression.

“There is no truth except that there is no truth except that there is no truth except that there is no truth…”

“Truth is subjective except for the truth that truth is subjective except for the truth that truth is subjective …”

And the statement never comes to an end. Making it logically impossible on two grounds instead of just one.


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

George Floyd Did Not Kill Himself

I have looked at the videos available on YouTube. It is fortunate that so many people are walking around with video cameras these days.

I cannot see how this wasn't premeditated murder.


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

Trump's Fight to Tweet Freely

The Democratic Party and the legacy media seem determined to commit suicide by tantrum. The Communist Party of China seems determined to do the same. And now it looks as though it’s Twitter and Jack Dorsey.

By labelling a tweet by the President fake news, they seemed to be daring him to go after them and the rest of social media, and end their practice of censoring political views. Many on the right have been demanding this for some time. Now Trump can no longer ignore these demands.

Now he has signed an executive order demanding that the matter be investigated. And what is Twitter’s immediate response? To immediately flag another of his tweets.

It seems reckless enough to pick a fight with the president of the US, and seem to claim the right to tell him what to do. But it is worse than that. Trump is entirely responsible for the profitability of Twitter. It was on its way to die a natural death when he came along, and made it his main platform. Since he began, everyone had to have a Twitter account, in order to follow Trump.

Never mind Trump’s legal powers as president. All he would have to do is move off Twitter onto another platform, and Twitter is dead.

And it is exactly the kind of controversial tweets that Twitter is flagging that make him a must-read.

Has Jack Dorsey gone mad? Surely he is a smart enough businessman to realize that he is destroying his business.

Here is what I think must be behind it: Dorsey wants to force Trump to promote legislation requiring Twitter, and everyone else, to stop censoring and publish everything. He might even be in collusion with Trump on this, and be giving him cover.

The fact that Trump doesn't simply move off Twitter and kill it suggests that this is so.

Dorsey’s main interest, presumably, is in making money. So too with the other tech barons. It is in their financial interests to run everything, to promote higher levels of readership. Even if that were not so, policing what is posted costs money.

They have been censoring not because they want to, but because advertisers demand it. And advertisers demand it because people on the left have been complaining to them, and threatening boycotts if they are associated with political content the left does not like.

If they ignore this pressure and fail to censor, the advertisers can simply move their money to another platform that does. So none of the big companies dares to be the one not to censor.

It is a classic situation in which legislation can benefit everyone. Make it illegal to censor, and the advertisers will have nowhere else to go. And the advertisers are happy too—they reach more people, and can no longer be threatened with boycotts or bad PR by left-wing activists over where they advertise.


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

China's Rise

While we in North America and Europe are tearing down our statues, no longer teaching history, deliberately discouraging memorization, and otherwise committing cultural suicide, the Chinese are learning all about Western culture.

I am currently teaching Chinese students of high school age online. It is extremely rewarding. I discover they have all had, in effect, a solid Western education. They have been taught all the little bits of traditional wisdom. They have read all the books and know all the history. Not excluding books I might have thought might be sensitive for political reasons, like 1984 and Animal Farm. No problems of political correctness there, it seems. In their free time, they have read comic books summarizing elements of Western culture. It is pretty clear the entire country is making a concerted effort to understand and assimilate what it can from the West. They know more about Western civilization and history than the typical Canadian or American university graduate.

The big gap is perhaps Christianity. But there are signs that, despite the government, the average Chinese is very interested.

For years, the league tables from the OECD have shown that students in Singapore, Shanghai, Taiwan, or Hong Kong do better on their standardized tests than anyone in America or Europe.

People have scoffed, and claimed the Chinese system is good for standardized tests, but does not teach how to think creatively. That may be so; I have no opinion at this point; other than to say it sounds odd to me to claim that the typical Canadian public school teaches creativity. Set that aside. Even if true, they are surely gaining a major strategic advantage: they understand us Westerners. We do not understand them.

“Western civilization” has been dying in Europe since about 1900. It started dying in America too as of about the 1960s.

I find it consoling that China might be able, in future, to carry that torch, the torch of civilization in general, without losing all that has been accomplished in Europe in the past two thousand years. Granted that the present government is a problem, and is holding this process back; but I expect the present government to be gone, one way or another, soon. I invoke dialectical materialism here: once any population has reached a certain prosperity level, around $10,000 US GDP per capita, a transition to democracy seems inevitable. Witness South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, or Singapore.

If those now in charge do not mess it all up on the way out, as they almost seem to be striving to do, the long-term future of a non-Communist China looks promising to me.


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

Crisis in Ontario Nursing Homes

Nursing home, Braeside, Ontario, 1947
The military had to be called in to Ontario nursing homes when the regular staff walked out in fear of coronavirus. Now, unsurprisingly, they are reporting terrible conditions.

We are, as a society, dangerously ignorant, if not in deliberate denial, of the fact that there are people in the world who get satisfaction out of controlling other people and making other people suffer. These are, more or less, in modern psychological terminology, “narcissists,” those who wish to feel superior to others. The problem is common, because it is a common, indeed inevitable human impulse: to be as gods, as the serpent promised Eve. It is, simply, the impulse to evil.

Because we are ignorant of, or in denial of, the reality of evil, we no longer put up any barriers against them.

Anyone who gets satisfaction out of making others suffer will naturally gravitate to jobs in which they get to deal with especially vulnerable people, ideally people under their full, unsupervised control. Nursing homes are perfect for such purposes. Unless we set up a system to prevent it, we should expect that anyone in a nursing home is being abused.

Other obvious opportunities for such predators are, of course, orphanages, hospitals, mental hospitals, or schools. Especially residential schools.

We are in the habit of blaming the eternal scandals around orphanages and residential schools on the religious groups that had been running them. But religious groups cannot be blamed in the present case. The media narrative instead seems to be that the problem is with their being “private” and “for profit.” The problem will be solved, then, by having the government run them.

This will, of course, make the problem worse. Just as secularizing the schools and hospitals made the problem worse. It will reduce supervision, improve job security, and raise the pay, rewarding the predators and making the job more attractive to them. Private employers must please the customers: family members, if not the residents themselves. Bureaucrats get to do as they want.

We used to prevent or minimize such abuse by making such jobs part of a religious vocation. The churches ran the hospitals, the nursing homes, the orphanages, the asylums, and the schools. This was so obvious a strategy that it was followed, not just in North America and Europe, but everywhere, in Buddhist lands or Muslim lands as much as in Christian lands.

This approach meant staff were selected and vetted from the outset for their moral character. They were closely supervised at all times; not just on the job, but outside the job.

We have systematically removed all such protections.

Now the vulnerable everywhere must pay a heavy price.



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

The Trinity and Islam

The major world religions agree on most things. On basic morality, on an afterlife, on heaven and hell. However, it is valid and necessary to point out that they do disagree in some things; and when they do, at least one of them must be wrong.

Islam has made its fundamental disagreement with Christianity plain: it developed, after all, in the context of Christianity, and needed to differentiate itself. Christianity is wrong because it believes God is a Trinity; for Islam, God is a unity. According to Islam, believing Jesus is God is a ticket to Hell.

We are obliged to take a position on the matter. We cannot stay neutral.

First, why insist God cannot have more than one nature? Even a mere mortal like myself can have three separate Facebook pages, each presenting a somewhat different identity. Why can’t God do something similar? And God is omnipotent: does one deny his ability to do so? To deny such an ability is to deny your God is God—and that would be the apostasy. You are worshipping some demon.

One must assert, therefore, that God may choose to remain at all times one person, or manifest himself as many. Do we have the right to presuppose which he must choose or has chosen? Would God send us to Hell if, in sincerity, we chose wrong in guessing the divine intent? How would that be a moral failing on our part?

To make it a matter for hellfire, therefore, looks like special pleading to scare people away from examining the argument.

What is the evidence? 


The evidence of the Quran is clear, that God is one and Jesus is not God. But the authority of the Quran depends on the assumption that it comes from God; using it as authority on the nature of God is tautological. The same is true of the evidence for the Trinity in the Bible.

Our conclusion must therefore be based on pure reason from first principles.

There are such arguments for the Trinity.

To begin with, to say that God is a perfect unity, lacking all duality or multiplicity, means that God is lacking something: multiplicity. If he lacks something, unless that thing is itself a flaw, he is less than perfect. Is being more than one a flaw? If so, creation itself is a flaw, and God must have been wrong to create anything. Either way, if he is envisioned as perfect unity, he is flawed.

Let us then consider the repeated Muslim assumption that Allah is benevolent, merciful. Or the Christian equivalent assertion, that God is love.

It is impossible for God to be benevolent or merciful in the absence of any other beings. Merciful to whom?

It is impossible for love to exist within only one being; love exists only with other.

Therefore, if either love or benevolence are intrinsic to his nature, he must have been multiple in some way eternally. Or, if he was not, his nature has changed over time. If it has changed over time, his previous state must have been lacking. And lacking in things we would consider intrinsically good: in love, in mercy, in benevolence.

So he was not God yet, for God is by definition perfect, and he was not perfect.

In sum, God is not God until and unless he is multiple. We must assume he is and was eternally.


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