Stephen Roney's Blog, page 266

On the Night We Held the Moon for Ransom

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

We Three Kings

A soothing rendition:





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

Pete Buttigieg's Christmas

The Flight into Egypt
Pete Buttigieg has gotten a lot of criticism for his Christmas tweet:

“Today I join millions around the world in celebrating the arrival of divinity on earth, who came into this world not in riches but in poverty, not as a citizen but as a refugee. No matter where or how we celebrate, merry Christmas.”

Others quickly pointed out that there is no indication in the Gospel that Jesus’s birth family was either rich or poor. And Mary and Joseph were in Bethlehem not as refugees, but to register for a census.

And why can’t he use the name “Jesus”?

It seemed to me initially obvious that Buttigieg was way off; I am surprised to see that some have also defended his tweet.

Peter Wever at The Week, for example, responds “it's hard to see how a carpenter from an otherwise insignificant village in Galilee would be well-off.”

I suppose that depends on what counts for you as “well-off.” A carpenter from a small town in America today can do well enough. He’s just not going to make the Fortune 500.

But it seems to me the bottom line is that, if it were somehow significant to the narrative that Jesus was either rich or poor, that fact would have been noted in the Gospels.

Jack Jenkins responds that Jesus, Mary and Joseph were indeed refugees at a later point, the flight into Egypt.

JMJ do seem to fit the meaning of “refugee” in informal usage during the flight into Egypt; but not the legal definition. Because they did not leave their home country—Judea, Galilee, and Egypt were all provinces of the Roman Empire. It would be like fleeing from Georgia to Ohio. As many blacks did during “Jim Crow” days.

This does not look to me like a plausible interpretation of what Buttigieg wrote, however. He was speaking of how Jesus came into this world, not of subsequent events.

So it seems to me there are two possibilities here: either Buttigieg does not have a very clear idea of the New Testament; or he is distorting it to suit a political agenda.

Either way, it does not mark him as a serious Christian.

This would not matter, except that he has made his Christianity a central feature of his campaign, arguing that he can win Christian votes away from the right.

A tweet like this seems to make this less likely, by showing how superficial his avowed Christianity actually is.

There may be a constituency, on the other hand, of those who are not themselves serious Christians, but who would still like to be reassured that their political beliefs do not run counter to it. This, after all, is presumably why we hear ahistorical assertions that, say, Jesus was black, or a communist, or a political revolutionary.

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

Mark Steyn Christmas Show

This is objectively pretty lame, but for some reason, I love Mark Steyn's Christmas shows.
Live from Montreal!




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

Angles We Have Heard on High

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

All in the Holy Family

Today is the Feast of the Holy Family. So the readings on the topic of family were of course rolled out.

The first reading was from Sirach:

My son, take care of your father when he is old;
grieve him not as long as he lives.
Even if his mind fail, be considerate of him;
revile him not all the days of his life;
kindness to a father will not be forgotten,

… outlining at least in part what it means to “honour your father and your mother”: to care for them in their old age.

And the second reading was from Colossians:

Children, obey your parents in everything,
for this is pleasing to the Lord.
Fathers, do not provoke your children,
so they may not become discouraged.

The last two lines jumped out at me.

Recently, psychiatry has come to the conclusion that depression is generally the result of childhood abuse or neglect.

But this seems to have been pretty well understood right up until Freud proposed his “Oedipus complex” as an alternative explanation.

Here we seem to have the Bible saying as much: a parent “provoking” his children makes them “discouraged”—that is, depressed.

I checked the meaning of the original Greek:

“provoke”: “to stir up, arouse to anger, provoke, irritate, incite.”

“discouraged” : “to lose heart, be despondent, be disheartened. From a compound of a and thumos; to be spiritless.”

So at last we are back to the obvious.


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

An Updated List

... of the Seven Deadly Sins:



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Mariah Carey IS Christmas

Giving it the Gospel feel.



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

Canada's New Prime Minister

Some are saying that Justin Trudeau’s mandate for Chrystia Freeland as Deputy Prime Minister effectively makes her the real Prime Minister.

Smart move. Trudeau is in over his head—he needs someone else to make the decisions. He has been showing poor judgement for some time. And he is not popular any longer. It makes obvious sense to move to a “team” approach, and take that harsh spotlight off him.

Why doesn’t he just step down?

Understandably, he is not going to want to do that. This looks like a decent compromise. If the polls seem to warrant it, this puts Freeland in position to quickly and smoothly take over before an election.

But I think Freeland is a poor choice for this role. She keeps getting good media reviews, but she failed spectacularly in her previous posting as foreign minister. She managed, in just a couple of years, to alienate the Americans, the Chinese, the Saudis, and the Russians. She had an open row with her own ambassador to China. Canada is now isolated internationally to an extent that would have been unthinkable before her tenure.

Still, the Tories ought to keep in mind, in their upcoming leadership contest: who would run best against Freeland?

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

Predictions for 2020

I’m probably absurdly optimistic, but I have an intuition we have turned a corner.

UK former speaker John Bercow put out a Christmas message in which he called for greater civility and no more demonizing those with whom you disagree.

This seems notable, because Bercow was a notorious “Remainer,” and stands accused of twisting the Commons rules in aid of the Remain cause. The Remainers in general were guilty of slandering Nigel Farage, Boris Johnson, and the Brexiteers as racists and fascists.

It looks a bit like a concession speech. The left-wing elite may understand that their popular support has abandoned them, and they now risk being on the receiving end of the sort of treatment they have dished out.

It may not be related, but I was also surprised to receive friendly responses from several old friends to whom I sent electronic Christmas cards—who had previously unfriended me over political differences.

The shift may happen suddenly, after all. Gandhi tracked it, or someone; we generally attribute the quote to Gandhi: “first they ignore you, then they mock you, then they fight you, then you’ve won.”

This is clearer in the UK than in North America, thanks to Johnson’s big election win; but we are all now tightly bound together in the Anglosphere—an illustration of why an English-speaking union makes sense. The shift of the working class in the north of England looks like the shift of the upper Midwest working class to Trump last US election.

Both shifts look historic, a paradigm change. Regular folks are leaving the left electorally.

So let’s go ahead and make some crazy optimistic predictions, on the premise that the paradigm has shifted.



China’s government falls. I’ve been predicting this since the nineties. But as the Chinese living standard rises, it gets more probable every year: there is a point, at about $10,000 per person per annum GDP, at which the middle class will no longer tolerate and need no longer tolerate dictatorial rule. China is close to that.

The CPC has now been in command for 70 years. That’s the point at which the Soviet Union ran out of social capital. There may be something in that number—it is the point at which all the original generation that supported the revolution has passed on.



My Chinese friends always said the regime would stay so long as the economy was good; but if it turned sour, they could command no residual or ideological loyalty. No more mandate of heaven. The Chinese economy is hitting a demographic hurdle, thanks in large part to the one-child policy. They cannot compete on cheap labour any longer.

Moving away from China, the rise of social media is cleaning things up everywhere. Corruption has always been the main reason the underdeveloped world is underdeveloped. But now the average person can record functionaries misfunctioning, and post the results for all to see. This is causing corruption to be rapidly rooted out in the Philippines, and probably elsewhere. Either governments prosecute when this is uncovered, or governments get overthrown.



Social media is also making it easier for opposition groups to organize and communicate. Flash mobs can appear at any moment to protest. The Arab Spring demonstrated the potential--but may have been only a dress rehearsal. In a way, the recent British election was another consequence: people are no longer taking the lead of the media.

So we are seeing lots of people in the streets, in lots of countries. Any given regime might go down.



Who is most likely to fall? Surely Iran is a prime candidate. Putin in Russia. Both have seen close calls in the recent past. Both must be reeling from the decline in oil revenue. Either would have vast significance in geopolitical terms.

I think Saudi Arabia also needs to be on that list. For them, too, the oil money is running out. During the Arab Spring, they bought peace. They can’t do it a second time.

Now imagine two or three of these governments fall in the next year: Russia, Iran, China.

Trump then wins reelection against Bernie Sanders in something like a landslide. The Democrats will be left in the same kind of disorder as Britain’s Labour Party.

Yes, I’m predicting Bernie Sanders will be the nominee. See my argument in a previous post. And I do not think this would be a mistake; I think he would do as well as anyone running in the general election. But barring a big recession, I think Trump is unbeatable. If, say, China and Iran go down, he’s going to have an easy win.

Britain is now going to leave the EU. I predict there will be no dire consequences; Britain’s economy will thrive. Once out, it is in Europe’s interest to make a new trade deal. If the EU does not act quickly and enthusiastically, pressures will build for other countries to pull out—the UK is too important to them. At the same time. new trading opportunities will open up beyond Europe.

I hope to see negotiations begin almost immediately on a trade deal with the US and Canada that will, in effect, bring in Britain as a member of NAFTA. Negotiations will begin on something with India too. Maybe a joint deal with Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

In Canada, the electoral forecast seems murky. The Conservatives, in the middle of a leadership race, are not going to want to force an election soon. The NDP is out of money, and so are not going to want an election. The BQ had a surprisingly good result last time, and probably cannot expect to do as well again; so they are not going to want an election. This will sustain a now quite unpopular government in power.

This will increase voter frustration with the Liberals—and discredit the other parties for seeming not to offer an alternative. The Tories will probably reinforce this impression of lack of choice by turning to a more moderate leader. On present form, the NDP platrform will not be much different from the Liberals.

I predict, when an election does come, this should produce a breakthrough for Maxime Bernier and the PPC. They will look like the only real protest vote.

As a result, the Liberals probably get to stay in power…. But if we are really seeing a paradigm shift, we may instead see the two biggest parties suddenly both being on the right, as has happened in Europe. The centre might abandon the Liberals for a similar Tory platform, on the grounds of general corruption and disgust, and the angry protest vote, which can generally as easily go left or right, goes Bernier. Then the Tories may come to power by forming a coalition with either the PPC to their right, or the Liberals to their left.

We are due, even overdue, for some significant medical breakthroughs thanks to our growing knowledge of the human genome and to CRISPR. I expect some major development in the new year. Why not some promising new treatment for cancer, or something to notably slow the aging process?

Hi-tech is less easy for me to predict than it used to be, now that it has become so diffuse and pervasive. I think the underlying logic of the Internet works against the big monopolies that have developed. I expect the march of technology and increasingly bad PR is going to pull Google/Alphabet and Facebook down to size. I think Amazon still has legs and should continue to strengthen. I think Elon Musk is mostly a good vapourware salesman, and Tesla is going to go under.

AI is going to start replacing white-collar jobs.

Please bear in mind that all predictions are almost always wrong, and I have a no better track record than the experts.


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