Stephen Roney's Blog, page 51

Milking the Poor

 

Skibbereen, 1847

Back in 1815, the government of Great Britain decided to impose a stiff tariff on any grain being imported from abroad, and even to refuse entry if the grain was sold too cheaply to Britons. This was to keep grain prices high for British landowners.

This was a massive transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich—the landowning class, the aristocracy.

In Ireland, the poor were forced to survive on their own meagre crops of potatoes. They could not afford bread.

And in 1845, the potato crop failed. This did not move the UK government to end the Corn Laws. One third of the Irish starved to death, and one third emigrated in “coffin ships,” largely to Canada, many dying on the way, many dying on the docks. Survivors had to start a new life with nothing. They largely built the Canada we have today.

And today, the Canadian government is doing pretty much the same thing all over again: their “price supports” for eggs, milk, dairy products, and poultry, actually a government-enforced cartel in restraint of trade. These are not luxury items, but the cheapest protein available. The government forces prices up by restricting supply and preventing importation.

It is, again, a massive transfer of wealth from the poorest Canadians to the rich—to large corporate farming operations with the capital to buy “quota.”

It is especially indefensible in a time like now, with the poor seeing their cost of living spiral upward, many living in tents on the street. As with Ireland in 1847, their troubles could be vastly improved immediately by a stroke of the pen. And a callous government is refusing to do it.

The argument for price supports is that they are necessary to allow Canadian farmers to compete, since both America and the EU directly subsidize their agricultural sector.

Doing the same would be better. At least that would be subsidizing both rich and poor instead of asking the poor to subsidize the rich.

But if the American taxpayer or the French taxpayer really want to subsidize food costs for Canadians, why exactly should we want to prevent it?

In every other sector, we believe in the principle of comparative advantage: if someone else can make shoes at a lower cost than we can, we buy their shoes, and sell them something we can make more efficiently, like car parts. For the benefit of all, Canadian farms should concentrate on crops they can sell abroad, rather than demanding a protected market at home. Canadian cheese used to dominate the British market; price supports have cost us that opportunity. And where would we be if, in retaliation, other countries raised tariff barriers to our canola or durum wheat or lumber?

At worst, if, improbably, no crops are profitable in Canada, that farmland is not going anywhere. It is there when we need it.

Are we worried about losing the expertise for poultry or dairy farming in case of future need, in, say, wartime? We could preserve that in government experimental farms and agricultural stations. And, at worst, it is hard to imagine a scenario in which we could not be supplied from the USA.

It’s time to end the exploitation of the poor.

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

Dirty Feet

 

There has been a lot of ink already on the “He gets us” Superbowl ad showing people washing one another’s feet. I think the objections to it, from both left and right, are overreactions. It is at least well-intentioned.

“Jesus didn’t teach hate. He washed feet.”

That seems to want to speak of God’s offer of forgiveness. Washing does imply the feet are dirty.

However, it seems to promote the troublesome recent redefinition of the word “hate” to mean “disapproval.” Just as “love” has been redefined to mean “coitus.” It shows a woman washing the feet of another woman outside an abortion clinic: seeming to imply that killing someone is not hateful, but objecting to killing someone is. A troublesome miscommunication, if not intended. Similarly, presumably, scolding your child for playing in traffic would mean you hate your child. And an umpire calling a ball player out at second base does so out of hatred.

Such messages do not make the world a better place. The road to Hell is paved with such good intentions.

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

An Unanswered Letter

 

Santa Claus

North Pole

Canada

Dear Santa:

I don’t want anything for Christmas this year.

I know you are good and you love me. You brought me such nice toys in the past, when I was little. I love the cinnamon bear, I keep him on my pillow every night. And the My Little Pet Shop. I want to have a pet shop when I grow up. I know you wanted to bring me a pony two years ago, but it wouldn’t fit down the chimney. I understand. I don’t need a pony.

 You didn’t bring me anything last year, but I know you were sad, since Dad died that summer. Mom told me. I was sad too, and I didn’t want anything. I miss Dad. I wish he wasn’t dead.

Now you don’t need to bring me anything ever again. Just do one thing. Mom has cancer. She is so thin. We don’t have money for the hospital. I want you to make her better. 

I believe in you, Santa.

Love

XOXOXO

Trixi Ann

Cebu, Philippines

I wrote this for a writing group today.

They thought it was a good story.

They do not understand. 

I do not write fiction.

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

Why Governments Are Doing Strange Things

 

Neil Oliver makes the point that the powers that be would never be going after Donald Trump so aggressively in court if they thought they could win the next election with the usual ballot stuffing and fraud. It is dangerous for them to be so blatant. It discredits them. They are burning through their credibility and their social capital.

And that, it seems to me, is the key to much that is going on in the world right now. Ruling elites around the world are rapidly becoming more oppressive, or trying to be, because the jig is up. They are resorting to desperate measures because things are getting beyond their control. The dam is about to burst on them; it is bursting.

The Devil always says the opposite of the truth. The elites are spreading the idea that the unskilled and less educated will soon have no social utility due to computerization and robots, and will have to be supported on Universal Basic Income to eat crickets. This is our clearest signal that the elites are about to become redundant due to computerization, and they know it. Each one of us will have all expertise and all available information at our fingertips, without the need for these expensive and often bullying gatekeepers.

You are also seeing the elite now starting to turn on their own. The US media is turning on Biden; the Canadian media grows critical of Justin Trudeau. Our local Liberal member boasted proudly to Facebook that he voted against his own government on a recent NDP motion. It was all for show; the motion hd no chance of passing. But The Vicar of Bray knows how to preserve his own position: there is panc among the deck chairs.

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

The Christmas Devil

 

No doubt we all make mistakes as parents. 

The thing I feel worst about is telling my kids that Santa Claus filled their stockings at Christmas.

I probably lost many of you there. You think I’m a grinch.

Deal with it. There is no grinch.

We at least never seriously pretended there was an Easter Bunny or a tooth fairy; that was only pro forma, a joke we all shared. We never restricted what they could read or where they could go online. I remembered too well how psychologically valuable superhero comics were to me as a child, and how some other kids were not allowed comics. I did explain to my son that Santa Claus was really Saint Nicholas. But because he was a saint in heaven, I told him, he could still influence events on earth. That left him with the false impression that St. Nicholas brought the gifts. 

I hope he has forgiven me. I need forgiveness.

To be clear, telling children that Santa brings the gifts is a lie. Telling a lie is always wrong. Telling children this lie deliberately teaches them that lying is not wrong, but clever. It is laughing at them behind their back. It is humiliating them, and trying to establish your own superiority. It is manipulating their emotions. It is despicable.

Moreover, the figure of Santa Claus also looks like a deliberate distraction from the real point of the day; and it shifts the focus from the sacred to the mere acquisition of stuff. Our modern Santa Claus clearly derives in part from the old Lord of Misrule, his red nose from partaking of the wassail bowl, his rotundity from overindulgence.

Wrong lesson altogether; it looks like subversion and acedia.

The Devil says the opposite of the truth: it is precisely these things we claim to be doing “for the children” that most reveal our culture’s hatred for the young.

At the breakfast table this morning, I had a good conversation about death and sex with my sixteen-year-old daughter. She agreed with me that people talk too little of death, because we are afraid of it. She agreed that it is dangerous not to teach children about sex. She agreed that the general bowdlerization of kidlit and fairy tales “to avoid traumatizing children” was harmful. The duty of parents is to raise children to adulthood, not to treat them as pets. They need to learn that wolves eat little girls, you ought not to trespass on a bear’s home, and you should not accept apples from strangers. 

Far worse the newer woke versions, in which ogres are simply misunderstood, wolves are actually vegetarians, fairy godmothers are busybodies, and so forth.

We are positively grooming children for predators of all kinds.

Helicopter parenting, drag queen story hour and genital mutilations are just the latest stages in this progression of hatred towards our children, which has been developing since Victorian times.

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

... And It Brought Us Justin Trudeau

 

Sunny Hostin, a “black” host on The View, recently learned on-air that her ancestors included slaveowners. Which puts her in an ambiguous situation, since she has been calling for reparations for American blacks over slavery. Kamala Harris is also descended from slaveholders, in Jamaica.

Problem: under slavery, slavers owned their slaves. They could do what they wanted with them. Can anyone doubt they used black slaves for sex?

Probably no Americans tracing descent from the institution of slavery are purely African by genetics. They are probably also descendants of the slaveowners. Even on the African side, they are probably as much descendants of slavers as of slaves; the practice of slavery has been endemic in Africa from ancient times.

So, if any Americans are owed reparations for slavery, they are owed it by themselves. Not by the innocent descendants of European immigrants arriving in America after slavery was abolished, from a continent where the practice was almost unknown, but for the danger of being carried off by Arab slavers from Africa. Not from those whose ancestors laboured alongside the blacks as indentured servants. Only one percent of Americans ever owned slaves.

But of course the whole concept of reparations for those who never experienced slavery is nonsense to begin with. It makes sense only for living survivors of an injustice. We are individuals, responsible for our acts, not for the acts of others. None of us can justly be rewarded or punished for the deeds of our ancestors. The more so since the child of a bad person is most likely already their worst victim. 

The idea of inherited guilt or credit is the essence of human inequality. It is what the American Revolution was meant to end forever. It is the notion of inherited privilege; and it is blood libel.

All the same arguments hold for the idea of special “aboriginal rights” in Canada. There are few if any “pure blood” Indians in Canada. We are all Americans, we are all Canadians, we are all brothers and sisters.

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

Peace in Our Time

 

Satan likes uniforms

I think the ancien regime is collapsing before our eyes. 

I teach Asian students studying in the US and Canada, at high school through grad school level. I can report that they are fed up with the wokery they are forced to deal with in their classes. They complain endlessly about it.

Polls suggest it is not just Asian students.

The left has gotten far by being the loudest voice, the squeaking wheel. And everyone else goes along to get along. Peace at any price.

A bad and cowardly policy—the mistake once known as appeasement, and before that, Danegeld. This encourages the aggressor to continually make more and greater demands, trained to believe the same rewards will keep coming.

There necessarily comes a point at which their demands are unsustainable, and all hell must break loose.

We are there. 

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

The Perils of Modern Dating

 

It was like in that painting, “Nighthawks.” Al all-night diner near the docks, an oasis of light on a darkened, empty street.

This meant she didn’t want to be seen with me. A woman like that—she was probably cheating on someone. No way she was still single. 

I had my choice of tables—almost no one in the place. I chose a seat with a view of the door. I couldn’t wait: that long black hair, those pale blue eyes. They had haunted my dreams for weeks.

Okay, she was late. Of course. A woman like that has a right to be late.

I checked my phone. No messages. She did not answer at her number.

But finally the door jerked open—first a jerk, then slowly.

Why was he so bundled up? She definitely did not want to be seen with me. I wouldn’t even hve known it was her, had she not walked straight up to my table and said my name.

“Frank?”

“Maryanne?”

“There’s something I haven’t told you, Frank. I guess I need to tell you now.”

“Sit down, Maryanne. I’m a good listener.”

“You don’t have to be.”

She began to take off her wrap. I saw the long black whiskers. I saw the thick lips. I saw the eyes.

They were not blue. They were small and black, like beads embedded in her grey skin.

Her mouth opened and closed convulsively, gasping for breath an she covered the back of my hand with a moist fin.

“Frank, do you understand what this means?”

“Yes, Maryanne. Someone explained it to me at my writers’ group.”

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

Individualism

 

My students, asked to explain “individualism”—it comes up in our readings—invariably come up with “selfishness.” Xerxes seems to think the same. 

I suspect that this is the baleful influence of our Marxist/fascist education system. Which would sneer at "rugged individualism" and "cowboys." No doubt that is "White supremacist and "partiarchal."

If you think “individualism” means “selfishness,” then you must think Oskar Schindler was selfish; or Socrates, Qu Yuan, Thomas More, the Buddha, or Jesus Christ. Not to mention Einstein, Newton, Tolstoy, Picasso, Casey Jones, Father Damien, or Pasteur.

Individualism means you believe it is the duty and right of the individual to make decisions for himself or herself. To exercise free will and make ethical choices. No more going along with the crowd.

Without individualism, there is no morality, and no human progress. Only evil and decline.

“Wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it.”

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

Fairy Tale Princesses are a Fairy Tale

 

When the average person thinks of fairy tales, they think of “Disney princesses.” And until the recent woke remakes, the basic plot was always to find true love, to link up with Prince Charming. Isn’t this what “fairy tale” is supposed to mean?

However, real fairy tales, as collected by the Grimms or Charles Perrault, rarely feature either princes or princesses.

They do usually have a king’s daughter as their protagonist, and probably feature a king’s son. But that is invariably how they are referred to, “king’s daughter” and “king’s son.” Never “princess.”

The point being made is that royal identity is a metaphor. It refers to narcissism: people who think of themselves as better than others, as kings.

In “Little Thumbkin,” all the tiny ogres sleep in crowns.

The clearest example is Hans Cristian Andersen’s “The Princess and the Pea.” The entire point of the tale is to define “real princess.” Those who were literal royalty were commonly not. Instead, an obviously poor homeless girl appears at the palace gate during a thunderstorm, water pouring out of her heels. “Down at heel.”

What made her a princess is her ability to be irritated and complain about a night spent on twenty soft mattresses.

A king’s daughter is the child of a narcissist. Suffering a narcissistic parent, who cares only for themselves, the children are anything but princesses. They struggle just to survive, like Cinderella, Snow White, Belle, or Rapunzel. The wealth or status of the parent is no help to them.

The original point of fairy tales is to give children an education in morals and life. This is what they had in preliterate times and places, when children did not read nor go to school; this, and the Sunday sermon. They are told by fairy godmothers—a godmother being a person deputed at baptism to raise a child in morals and truth, in the faith, and to protect them should the parents fail to do so.

Accordingly, many are about bad parenting, and seek to rescue the heroine from it. Usually bowdlerized delicately by making the villains step-parents.

According to Ursula Le Guin, who is wise in the ways of story, fairy tales must always be in the past tense—as they are—because present tense in narrative evokes discontinuity: nobody can know what happens next. Fairy tales are meant to restore a sense of security and the ultimate rightness of things in a child torn by the everyday madness of a dysfunctional family. They are written in “third person omniscient”: from God’s point of view.

Not the Disney versions, woke or pre-woke, which miss the point entirely. The Grimm or Perrault versions, as collected from the wild.

They are healing at any age.

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