Stephen Roney's Blog, page 42
April 23, 2024
Lilley on Pro-Terrorism Demonstrations in Ottawa
It's All Coming Out
Keeping track of what is going on in the world is liable to drive one to despair. So many people are getting away with so many things. The slaughter on October 7. Putin in Ukraine. Unknown people , possibly foreign angst or terrorists, flooding into the US. People shoplifting brazenly in SF and not getting arrested. Homelessness; rampant drug use. Lawfare against political opponents. Everyone in authority turns out to be a pedophile. Attempted censorship everywhere. The list goes on. Every time I check on X, it is a half dozen more horrifying revelations.
But perhaps this is the point: every time I check on X. A large part of what may seem to be some new chaos is that at last, thanks to the Internet and Elon Musk, we are actually hearing about things that previously were silenced—it is not so much that matters and morals are spiralling downward, but that things that dwelt in darkness are finally being brought to the light.
That, and the inevitable reaction by the guilty parties, trying desperately to close the spigots and lash out.
For the rest of us, the innocent many, any sudden flood of new knowledge is traumatizing; it upsets your world view, and so your mental equilibrium. What you thought was true, and possibly based your life on, isn’t. Wait; you can’t trust doctors? You can’t trust science? You can’t trust the justice system? You can’t trust the results of elections? You can’ t trust cardinals and popes?
Anyone might experience cognitive dissonance, and a sense of emotional betrayal, and depression, as a result.
As Aristotle put it, the seed of knowledge is bitter, but the fruit is sweet. It is nevertheless better to know. And be able to improve.
Tucker Carlson argues, in his interview with Joe Rogan, that the evidence is plain that JFK was killed by the CIA; and Nixon was driven from office by the CIA/FBI. The evidence was always there. We knew long ago that J. Edgar Hoover had files on everyone in politics. We just never went there in our thoughts. It’s just that, in the past, with the media pipeline controlled, misdirection was possible. On this, and on any issue. Now somebody’s sure to blow the whistle, post the video, and the word gets out.
UFOs/ UAPs are another example. Evidence has been around since at least the forties. Only recently, official and semi-official sources are confirming that it is all real. Why?
Perhaps because everyone now has a smartphone. It is no longer just a rare blurry photo, or just an eye-witness account, that they have to discount. Now there are too many videos and electronic detections to plausibly deny…
So the world seems to be going crazy. But it was always crazy. And amidst the apparent craziness, a new and more solid perception of reality may be emerging. This new reality may be shocking to some. For example, Carlson observes that the obvious explanation for UFOs and their capabilities is that they are spiritual, and not physical, entities.
A lot of people, I feel, are turning to God. Especially those closest to the best sources for the new information. Candace Owens just entered the Catholic Church. Jordan Peterson, Joe Rogan, Dave Rubin, Tucker Carlson, Russell Brand, have been publicly and rather quickly moving towards a more religious view..
The biggest con of all has been the claim that he does not exist, and the spiritual world, the world of ideal forms, does not exist.
'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.
No Evidence of Mass Graves
'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.
April 22, 2024
Tucker Carlson on UFOs
1847
People are waking up everywhere to a growing totalitarianism. The Young Turks are turning. Bill Maher seems to have turned. The lid is coming off, in the public square. With much thanks to Elon Musk.
But governments are not backing down. Never mind the madness in Canada. The Biden administration is now suing a company for discrimination for requiring a criminal background check of potential employees before they hire. This, apparently, disproportionately affects blacks. They have amended Title 9 , without any congressional mandate, to force schools everywhere to let men use women’s washrooms, and to remove due process in charges of sexual assault.
In Canada, Trudeau’s new budget pushes up the capital gains tax, further discouraging any new investment, while Canada’s productivity is already collapsing due to a lack of new investment. They are actively discouraging development of our natural resources. In a time of high inflation, they are jacking up the carbon tax.
Where does this end? The troubling thing is that the US administration, Trudeau’s, and governments elsewhere in the developed world, seem to be showing contempt for the general public, for average folks, their traditions, wellbeing, and safety. How, in a democracy, can this make sense to them? Do they plan to fix the election?
Surely they do. In the US and Canada, they are doing whatever they can to fix the election in plan view, by censoring dissent and pursuing their opponents through the courts.
Given that they will go this far, if Trump wins anyway, will the apparatus of government simply refuse to obey? Tucker Carlson believes the Deep State took out Kennedy and Nixon. Why not Trump?
But the public has greater visibility with the Internet than it used to. They are more likely now to see and understand. And with the Internet, they have better ability to organize outside of government, making totalitarianism harder to enforce.
I dread the thought, but I now see actual revolution as likely. I fear that flag is going to go up soon in at least one major developed country.
Those currently in power are to blame. But the short-term results are likely to be terrible for everyone.
'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.
April 21, 2024
Carlson on Trudeau?
The Deep State Took Out Nixon?
'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.
Culture and Civilization
Our civilization seems to be falling apart. Probably the one essential reason is that we have lost the plot. We have lost our sense of what civilization means and why it is of value.
The term is rarely used any more, and if it is, it is misused. We absolutely must not, any longer, insist that all cultures are equally civilized. They are not.
In simplest terms, “civilization” means literally citification. For a culture, it means having fixed abodes; having a system of writing; and having a government with consistent rules and enforcement on at least the level of a functioning city and hinterland.
By this definition, none of the indigenous people of Canada were, at first contact, civilized; they were, to use the literal meaning of the term, “savages”. This is a simple descriptive statement. We used, even in my grad school days, to use the euphemism “primitive.” That is, they had not developed socially to the civilized level.
It should further be uncontroversial that a culture that has failed to develop writing, fixed dwellings, and consistent government is inferior to a culture that has.
Probably the finest cultures are those that first developed such things; imitation is easier. And culture is persistent. My travels and long sojourns abroad leave me with distinct opinions on what cultures are most civilized. Egyptians, Greeks, Jews, Chinese, are, to my mind, in the top rank. Interestingly, these are also the nations that have been civilized for longest. No doubt they have perfected the art of education.
But there is also something to be said for recent success. Cultures can also no doubt weaken or become diluted. I have to respect the British, with their remarkable talent for social organization: the common law, the parliamentary system. Thay have, if I may be so bold, been a civilizing influence in the world. I feel, for example, that the average immigrant from the West Indies is distinctly more civilized than an average African-American. The difference, I presume, is the education system modelled on the British.
I say that as someone without a drop of English blood in my veins. And mostly Irish blood—the one nation and culture that has least reason to love the English.
Broadly, to be civilized means to be capable of cooperating in large groups. This implies, in turn, an ability to suppress one’s immediate desires to achieve a goal. This is unnatural; it takes work. That work is the work of education, and education is the key to civilization.
But the payoff is more than that. The ability to defer gratification is also the essence of all moral behaviour. It is what makes us human, not animals. It is the secret to material success, to acquiring wealth. And it is what gives us all the higher things in life—the arts, the grace notes.
Education is the key, and the key part of that education is what we call the humanities: religion, philosophy, history, language arts, literature. They teach us to be human; beginning with Aesop’s fables and the fairy tales.
And, alarmingly, we no longer see the point of the humanities. That marks our doom.
Lacking this education lacking civilization, is disastrous both on the cultural and the individual level. It is the reason Canada’s indigenous people remain in a deprived and desperate state, five hundred years after first contact. Compare the Jews who immigrated to these shores since the complete catastrophe and genocide of the Holocaust. Who is doing better?
The difference is in child-rearing and the education system. Indian children are essentially taught nothing; they just run about and do as they like. They do not learn deferred gratification. Jewish kids have to go to school after school and learn the Hebrew language and all the ancient legends.
There may need to be a balance. Civilization is not an unmitigated good—the conflict between the demands of society and the natural man was the topic already of the world’s first epic, the story of Gilgamesh and Enkidu. I myself prefer the relative spontaneity of American music to the rigid formalism of Asian or European styles.
Everyone dreams of being a pirate, or escaping to the wild open range and living like an Indian. Perhaps the strongest civilizations allow for some such release, to keep the system elastic. The English, or the ancient Greeks, always had the option of going to sea; the Americans to head West. It is also the genius of the Sabbath.
But we also seem to be losing that safety hatch.
Civilized people need to be aware of the issue. You do not, as a practical matter, want uncivilized people living just across the fence from you. They might drop in at any time, break down your door, smash your things, rape your wife, and devour your children.
Consider the events of October 7.
The essence of the general mild anti-American prejudice among Canadians is that the average American, broadly speaking, is less civilized. Well-meaning, but boisterous, less polite. They will come for a visit, and look in your fridge. If they are at home, they will walk around in their underwear. They are childlike.
Of course this is a stereotype. Nevertheless, it is generally true, and it is a real thing—and that is the effect of culture.
'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.
April 20, 2024
Tucker Carlson Outlines the Problem
With a Bullet
The kids ask, why don’t wars other than Vietnam have a soundtrack?
They are influenced largely here by the soundtrack to Full Metal Jacket. This is their prime source of information about Vietnam.
But they do have a point. There was a burst of musical creativity at the time of Vietnam, far better than anything we’re hearing now. And a lot of it was seemingly inspired by the turmoil and the opposition to the war. Times of general crisis are good times for the arts; take Renaissance Italy. This is because art is here to heal confusion; the imagination spontaneously kicks in when times are bad, seeking some order or pattern over the rainbow.
But I immediately dispute their unlearned premise that other wars did not have a decent soundtrack. They just haven’t seen “O What a Lovely War.”
The Second World War too generated some great music. It just hasn’t, to my knowledge, been set to film in the same systematic way.
What about:
Run Rabbit Run
Blood on the Risers
Lili Marlene
The D-Day Dodgers
They Say That in the Army
The White Cliffs of Dover
We’ll Meet Again
I’m a Cranky Old Yank in a Clanky Old Tank
We’re Gonna Hang Out Our Washing on the Siegfried Line
Colonel Bogie’s March
Der Fuhrer’s Face
The North Atlantic Squadron
Bless ‘Em All
There’ll Always Be an England
This Is the Army, Mr. Jones
Coming in on a Wing and a Prayer
O How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning
And, although I find it too smarmy, “Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree.”
Somebody really should do a stage show like “O What a Lovely War” around these songs.
'Od's Blog: Catholic comments on the passing parade.
