Stephen Roney's Blog, page 24

It Being on Christmas Morning

 

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

A Few Predictions

 

We have had a dark four years, since 2020. But there is every reason to believe the worst is over, and the dawn is breaking again. You can see it everywhere. 

Trump takes office January 20th, but his election has already obviously changed the mood. The sane among us now are filled with energy, and the forces of darkness and confusion are on the defensive. 

Poilievre is likely to assume power by about March, following closely on Trump. Some worry he is secretly too moderate, different from the WEF crew only in rhetoric. But even if this is true, events will pull him along. Trump has yanked the Overton window right into the next room. Milei in Argentina is setting the pace, showing what can be done. Trump will want to do whatever Milei has succeeded in doing, and one-up him. Poilievre will need to maintain his street cred by matching them. There will be a general rush now to get further right before the crowd does, just as for years there has been a rush to the left.

This can certainly go too far, as the movement left did, but we have a lot of ground to make up before that happens.

Meantime, the culture is also healing. Disney and other woke corporations and advertisers are tanking. Prominent people are converting to Christianity, and Catholicism, at an accelerating rate. Awkward that at the same time the pope is an apostate, but it may be that the US leading world culture. Francis may fall in line, being firstly a politician. Or he may be moved to resign. The next conclave may find it urgent to choose someone unimpeachably orthodox. This seems to me likely.

I predict an end to the wars in Ukraine and Gaza. I predict that the Trump tariffs on Canadian goods really will be imposed. They will be lifted after negotiations with a new Canadian government. I predict that Trump will not occupy the Panama Canal Zone, but will negotiate a much-reduced passage fee for US vessels, and protections against Chinese influence; perhaps the US will return as a joint operator. I predict that, at least by the end of his administration, he will have managed to buy Greenland from Denmark. I predict that mass deportations will become the norm across the developed world; and doors will be shut pretty tight on further immigration. I predict that “climate change” will lose its constituency; those lads have cried wolf too many times.

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

O Holy Night

 

Mariah Carey does the ultimate rendition of the ultimate carol.

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

Without Firing a Shot

 

Back at the close of the 19th century, Wilfred Laurier said “Canada is free, and freedom is its nationality.”

It follows that, if Canada loses its freedom, there is no more reason for Canada. 

This is perhaps the most compelling argument for Canada to join the US. It is clear that the Canadian Constitution has not protected our freedoms. Justin Trudeau’s government has been able to trample them, and nothing seemed to be there to stop him. It is exceptionally difficult to legally amend the Canadian Constitution; we are stuck with it. The simplest thing, then, might be to join the USA. Many Canadians now crave the protections the US Constitution seems able to protect.

Here is a simple non-violent way for Trump to annex Canada: offer any native-born Canadian citizens automatic citizenship on moving to the States, on the revocation of their Canadian citizenship. Many would take him up on the offer; especially the youngest, most ambitious, and most qualified. Canada would be left impoverished, and the US enriched. More so if he also applied the threatened 25% tariffs. The remnants would probably soon enough beg to be admitted.

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

The Magdeberg Christmas Market Attack

 

There is a perverse confusion among commentators about the motives of the serial killer who recently drove a car into the Magdeberg Christmas Market. Of course this was a Muslim terrorist attack, right?

But then int runs out that, although born in Saudi Arabia, he was a militant atheist, and anti-Islam.

So, confused, the piundits ask, what possible motive could he have? He must be lying. He must really be Muslim, and was deep under cover for these many years. Or he is Shia, and only anti-Sunni, not anti-Muslim. And so on. 

After all, why on earth would an atheist be anti-Christian?

Stop and think for a moment.

In the real world, an atheist is far more an enemy of Christianity than a Muslim fellow monotheist. Consider the treatment of Christians in North Korea, Stalin’s Russia, Mao’s China. Compare the Christians living relatively peaceably in the Ottoman Empire and the Muslim Levant for millennia.

Modern jihadists are always at best lukewarm about Islam. Calling them “extremists” is an anti-religious alibi. They are westernized secular middle easterners suffering from culture shock. 

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

Tonight's the Night

 

The greatest of Christmas carols. A real test of a great voice.

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

A Canadian Advent Song

 

Gordon Lightfoot is a great lyricist.

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

The Two Kinds of People

 

There are, in this world, two kinds of people: those who accept the existence of God, and those who try to deny it. Never the twain shall meet; these are perfectly incompatible views, like humans and zombies. The instant you accept the existence of the absolute, it is necessarily of absolute importance. Those who do not see it are, at charitable best, insane. They are not in the conversation.

Deniers, similarly, cannot tolerate believers. Ultimately, the existence of God is certain and accessible to reason. To deny God is therefore to turn from God, to dodge the truth. 

People turn from God because they are conscious of doing wrong, or want to do wrong. They don’t want to accept the existence of divine justice. They want to get away with it; like Adam and Eve hiding in the bushes. Religion is a “religious dictatorship.” Anyone who asserts the existence of God, genuinely claims to believe it, is a threat to them, and must be shut down. Churches burned, Christmas markets attacked.

The most obvious tactic is to infiltrate any convenient religious body themselves, and seek to subvert it. This is the Pharisee gambit; they are common in every religion. I became all too familiar with them studying religion in grad school. Within the department, you gained approval by saying the most outrageously skeptical and irreligious thing.  The sincerely religious were mocked as ignorant.

I thank God I escaped that. But it was not easy. Most higher education is cult-like.

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

Advent Music from Jerusalem

 

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

Advent Music

 

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