Stephen Roney's Blog, page 81

The Eight Commandments of Democracy

 

Nigel Farage has been de-banked.

Democracy is fragile; it relies on a series of gentlemen’s agreements. This is why, for example, John Adams said that the US Constitution requires a moral people. Unfortunately, these gentlemen’s agreements, these moral principles, are being violated one after another by the left.

People in established democracies seem dangerously unaware of this fact. Such ignorance is why, for example, the US thought it would be a simple matter to go in to Iraq or Libya or Vietnam, overthrow the dictator, set up a thriving democracy, and withdraw in good order. Due to such ignorance, we are losing our own democracies.

1. Thou shalt not seek to silence or deplatform one’s opponent. Otherwise political discourse cannot occur, and the people cannot make informed decisions. This is why, in the Westminster system, the usual laws of libel do not apply within the chamber. This is why, intending to introduce democracy, Qatar first sank a good deal of money into promoting debating societies.

This principle is now being violated by the left, who openly call for “deplatforming” and shouting down opposing viewpoints.

2. Thou shalt not mess with the language, redefining words. This is what George Orwell warned about in 1984 and in “Politics and the English Language.” Language must remain politically neutral for honest discussion to take place. 

This principle is now being violated systematically by the left, who openly require others to use their preferred pronouns, while inventing or redefining terms like “Islamophobia,” “gynophobia,” “homophobia,” “equity,” “social justice,” “white supremacy,” “racism,” “sexism,” “gender-affirming care,” “reproductive health,” “genocide,” and so on.

3. When the opposing side leaves office, thou shalt not throw them into prison, and must not pursue them through the legal system, unless their offense is obvious and egregious. This is necessary because it is a grave moral hazard: to eliminate opposition using the powers of the state. Moreover, if a politician knows that, once he leaves office, he risks prison time, this is an obvious reason to refuse to leave office: to instead declare oneself dictator. For this reason, no doubt, Donald Trump did not go after Hillary Clinton for her highly suspicious and certainly illegal treatment of emails as Secretary of State.

This principle is being violated by Biden, Attorney-General Garland, and other, local, prosecutors, in going after Trump on anything they can think of.

4. Thou shalt not seize one’s opponents’ assets or interfere with their livelihood. Jefferson held that democracy was only possible given a large body of freeholders, because their livelihoods could not be easily taken away by governments. Only then can opposition organize. This is why democracy almost never breaks out until the GDP per capita is around $10,000 in 2000 US dollars; and almost always does once this threshold is reached. At this point a significant middle class has probably formed, not dependent on some authority for their daily survival. They can afford to look up from the grindstone to organize in opposition to government power. We are no longer a society of freeholders; this foundation has become more fragile. It now requires the political neutrality of the banking system.

This principle is being violated now in the case of Nigel Farage. And he is not the first or only one. The UK banks have been doing this for some time, against Tommy Robinson, against other dissidents. It was violated wholesale by the Trudeau government in illegally shutting down the Freedom Convoy and its supporters. It is being regularly violated by Google YouTube, Patreon, and other high-tech platforms.

5. Thou shalt not subvert the voting process. The process of voting and counting the votes must be fully transparent. As Stalin said, “It does not matter who gets to vote. It only matters who gets to count the vote.” Without a secure and trustworthy voting system, democracy cannot exist. 

Again, the left is systematically subverting this, most systematically by moving to voting machines which are, to either other authorities or the general public, black boxes known to be open to abuse in a variety of ways. This lack of transparency and ballot security is fatal even if they are not actually falsifying the returns; although we must assume they are.

6. Thou shalt not, as a government, control the press. To do so is to prevent the public from getting the information they need to choose their governments. This is why freedom of the press is included in the First Amendment, in the US Constitution’s Bill of Rights.

In Canada, in violation of this, the government is heavily subsidizing much of the press, while suppressing the rest, through legislation like C-11 and C-18. In the US and other Western countries, there seems to be an informal collusion between press and government, and informal suppression of alternative sources of news. “Journalists” move in and out of government positions, getting their rewards for compliance. This is in violation of the old and honourable gentleman’s agreement that newspapermen would be in eternal dissent from the government in power.

7. The police and courts must remain politically neutral. The average citizen must feel he has the recourse of going to law, and will find there an honest referee. He must feel that, if assaulted, he can go to the cop on the corner, and be treated fairly. If not, all civil society collapses, and we are either in a police state or beyond Thunderdome. 

Trudeau subverted this in Canada by using the police to suppress the truckers’ Freedom protest. The Canadian courts have subverted this with the Gladue Rule, which ended equal treatment under the law. In Britain, the police are in the business now of arresting people for posting anything online that they decide might offend some preferred group. In the US, the left is putting pressure on police forces to become ideologically subservient, with threats to defund them and spurious charges of racism. Police are terrified of being accused of racism or homophobia, and do not apply laws equally as a result. Currently, as one example, the police will turn a blind eye to nudity during a Pride parade that would be prosecuted as public indecency in another venue.

8. Thou shalt not stand in actual opposition to the country itself and the culture and civilization it represents and exists to preserve. This is implicit in the Westminster term, “His Majesty’s Loyal Opposition.” Opposition must be assumed to be loyal, and opposition must be, in the fundamental sense, loyal. All must ascribe to whatever shared values the country is founded upon: the Constitution, the doctrine of human rights, the welfare of the British nation, and so forth. Nobody must be actually trying to tear the system down; that is treason.

This too is violated by the modern left. They do indeed openly want to tear the system down: as “patriarchy,” or “white supremacy” or “colonialism.” They claim the US as we know it was created in 1619 to advance slavery. They claim Canada is built on “unceded” native land.

Is there a path back to liberal democracy, now that all the prerequisites are gone?

There has to be; for there was a way to form these gentlemen’s agreements and get to democracy in the first place. 

But with so few gentlemen in the audience, it is hard to see how the path back does not involve some great suffering and some violence. Or else divine intervention.

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

Happy Freedom Weekend

 

Fireworks from the Detroit-Windsor Freedom Festival

It is perhaps time, on this Dominion Day and Independence Day weekend, freedom’s birthday, to express some gratitude: God is still in his heaven, and the world is not just getting worse. Most notably, we have had several great US Supreme Court rulings as birthday presents, ending systemic racial discrimination in college admissions, restoring freedom of conscience, and killing Biden’s plan to rob from the poor and give to the rich on student loans.

I see much angst online among leftist friends. One points out, incorrectly, that all the judges who opposed the overturning of affirmative action were members of minorities, and those who voted to overturn were from the racial majority. (Kagan is not more obviously a member of a minority than Amy Coney Barret; or Ketanji Brown Jackson than Clarence Thomas). As if, even if true, this showed the ruling was racist. But on the other hand, one would equally expect people who got their positions through racial preferences to support racial preferences. It is racist to suppose that only “white” people can be racist.

But even on the left, something may be happening. RFK Jr. is a beam of sanity appearing unexpectedly on the left horizon. And he is pulling good poll numbers.

In crazy leftist Canada, the deep North, Pierre Poilievre is drawing huge crowds, reminiscent of Trudeaumania generations ago. New Brunswick’s premier is following Alberta’s, it seems, in swerving right.

Things are grim in France—the French police, now a force 45,000 strong, are calling it civil war. Terrible for the moment; but this may kill the delusion of multiculturalism in Europe and across the developed West. It may end the thoughtless “diversity is our strength” mantra.

Diversity is only half of the formula; unity is the other. E pluribus unum. A shared culture is the goal.

Speaking of which, Muslims in North America are protesting against sexual and critical theory indoctrination in the schools, joining with Christian parents. The leftist divide and control multiculturalism idea looks about to fall apart.

The Bud Light boycott has awakened the silent majority that they can do something. And it has awakened the large corporations to the risk of pushing leftist politics. We can see corporations backing away: the NHL, Starbucks.

The Trudeau government’s plan to force web services to pay for linking to Canadian news sites seems to be backfiring on them nicely. They are refusing, as a result, to link to any of the government’s subsidized news sites.

The tide of totalitarianism may still be high, but I think that it has turned.

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

After Covid and Vax Mandates, Is It Still Wise to Trust the Medical Establishment?

 

Makes you wonder about where "MAiD" is headed,

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

Why Canada Is Broken?

 

This article makes an interesting case that affirmative action is why systems no longer seem to work as well as they used to; why you can't get a passport, a doctor, a decent book or movie, or an affordable house, any longer.

And why wouldn't it be so?

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

Today's Mass Reading

 

Jesus said to his apostles:
"Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me,
and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me;
and whoever does not take up his cross
and follow after me is not worthy of me.
Whoever finds his life will lose it,
and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
"Whoever receives you receives me,
and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me.
Whoever receives a prophet because he is a prophet
will receive a prophet's reward,
and whoever receives a righteous man
because he is a righteous man
will receive a righteous man's reward.
And whoever gives only a cup of cold water
to one of these little ones to drink
because the little one is a disciple—

amen, I say to you, he will surely not lose his reward."
I was curious to see how the priest would handle today’s mass reading. Going as it does against the common idolatry of “family values.” 
His response was predictable.
“Of course this does not mean we are not supposed to love our parents. Indeed, the greater our love for God, the greater our love for others.”
Which is true, but does not explain the reading. If it is not meant to say what it says, why is it in the Bible? Did God or the Church make some mistake by including it?
It is a warning against loving your parents, or children, or indeed yourself, too much. One is supposed, instead, to love God, and after that, righteous men.
One loves one’s parents, or one’s children, if they are righteous men. Not because they are your parents, or children, but because they are righteous men.
Anything else is immoral, in just the same way racism is immoral.

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

I Was Still a Child

 

“I was still a child.”

The black girl in the red dress was singing for coins in front of the Dollarama. Beside her was a hand-drawn whiteboard giving her name, Keira, and an explanation. “I am suffering from depression and anxiety. All I have left is my voice.” 

And I knew it was true. I could hear it in her voice. She sang so sweet, so high and yet so deep. 

You need to suffer for a voice like that.

She deserved those coins more than any banker or store manager or dentist in the mall.

“I was still a child.”

That is the original tragedy of life: we are raised by humans. Every parent fails us, some maliciously, some with good intentions. As children, we cannot understand this. We believe, and we trust. We accept as right and normal whatever upbringing we are given. 

If we are told we are vermin, we believe it forever. If we are told we have no right to live, we believe it. If we are told we live only to give pleasure to the parent, we believe it. If we are not loved, we conclude we are unlovable.

The tragedy of black America is not the aftereffects of slavery 160 years ago. That’s absurd. Neither is it the aftereffects of Jim Crow three generations ago. It is the failure of the black family. It is kids raised with no father, heedless parents, or some predatory male boyfriend in place of a father; or kids given no moral guidance.

The tragedy of Canadian Indians is not residential schools two generations ago. It is not the loss of some imaginary culture in which you could talk to animals and trees. It is the failure, aided and abetted by welfare dependency, of the indigenous family. It is teenage girls desperate to escape their home situation, who too often die in the attempt; it is bands of kids on isolated reserves planning to commit suicide because they see no escape from “adult bullying.”

These subcultures have failed in parenting. 

But not they alone; it also happens in the best of families.

I used to know a couple of schizophrenics who mostly lived on the street and were in and out of psychiatric hospitals. I cannot tell you their last names, because almost anyone in Canada would recognize them. 

I knew a family up the hill in Westmount, then the poshest address in Canada, one of whose adolescent sons locked himself in a closet and set himself on fire.

Another kid I knew, from one of the best families in town, broke into a doctor’s office, and swallowed every pill he could find.

The “great families” are often as abusive to children as the poorest ones. The problem is not caused by poverty, but by parental sin. Great families regularly devour at least one child a generation, as if a ritual sacrifice. Think of Rosemary Kennedy. Think of the Emperor Claudius and the family of Caesar Augustus. 

Worse are the children raised not to be abused, to become scapegoats, but raised to abuse. Every dysfunctional family, unless there is only one child, seems to have both. It is these latter who pass on the original sin unto the next generation; the little Cains. They are groomed to believe that they are special, and deserve to get whatever they want. They will go on to abuse the next generation. And so the tragedy is repeated, generation to generation.

“Whoever humbles himself like this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. 5And whoever welcomes a little child like this in My name welcomes Me.

6But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.

7Woe to the world for the causes of sin. These stumbling blocks must come, but woe to the man through whom they come!”

There has been a black girl singing in front of Dollarama for all of human history. No doubt there will be, until the Second Coming.

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

Happy Dominion Day

 

And let’s call it Dominion Day, a name that echoes with history, instead of the bland and meaningless “Canada Day”; which seems to imply that Canada is simply generic, and stands for nothing.

“Canada Day” is of a piece with tearing own statues and renaming streets to remove all traces of our shared heritage. A country like Canada has too little shared heritage, not too much.

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

Looking at the Left's Arguments for Abortion

 

The great benefit of subscribing, as I do, to a left-wing columnist like my friend Xerxes is that I stay in touch with thinking on the left. And not just the left-wing commentariat. Xerxes’s readership is also solidly on the left, and he prints their letters.

Recently, I have been able to read all their best arguments in favour of unrestricted abortion.

T.W. does not seem to grasp the difference between abortion and miscarriage. He seems to believe that placing legal limits on abortion will require sending women who miscarry to prison. Apparently he does not recognize women as having free will.

B.E.: “[opposition to abortion] is a matter of religion [not political ideology], be it fundamentalist Protestant, traditional Catholic, Muslim, or any other faith that preaches against abortion.”

To the contrary, respect for the life and welfare of others is incumbent on all of us regardless of religion. Kant demonstrated the philosophical necessity. It is inherent too in the doctrine of human rights. Suggesting the issue is limited to certain religions is an alibi for immorality. Are only Catholics obliged not to murder, then? And if you simply reject Catholicism, you have free rein?

V.G.: “Totally shameful, the hypocrisy involved in fighting abortion -- yet when it comes to putting an end to mass shootings all we hear is deafening silence.”

Abortion is legal in Canada, and in most US States. It is even, in Canada, government-funded. 

Mass shooting is illegal, and receives the harshest penalty available in law. In most parts of the US, the death penalty. Most mass shooters are shot dead in the act. 

Imagine applying the same standard to women seeking abortion. That is, in effect, what V.G. demands, without realizing it.

C.B. refers to the foetus as a “part of [the mother’s] body.” C’s formulation is like saying the driver is part of a car. Or that, if an invited guest enters my home, I have the right to kill them. I own them; they are in my premises.

R.C. writes: “The same people who are anti-abortion, who are all for pre-born infant rights, lose all interest and support for the infant/mother once it is born.”

Good people are eager to care for any child allowed to live. There is a shortage of babies for adoption. Many US states have a law exempting a mother from any legal penalties should she leave her infant at the door of any hospital. He or she will be taken in and cared for, no questions asked. If the mother keeps the child, she is eligible for welfare—creating the problem, some claim, of young women deliberately getting pregnant outside of marriage for the state support.

Unwed mothers demanding more money or else they will kill the child looks like hostage taking and extortion.

R. C. goes on to say, “These same people [who oppose unrestricted abortion] are for the death penalty. And they have no problem with the hypocrisy of their beliefs.”

The largest identifiable group in the world opposed to abortion, the Catholic Church, is also opposed to the death penalty. So of whom does he speak?

But turn R’s accusation around. How many of those who support abortion also oppose the death penalty?

They are actually endorsing executing an innocent person at random while objecting to executing a convicted murderer after due process of law.

R. is a classic hypocrite for not seeing this, and then accusing others or hypocrisy.

And that is apparently the best they’ve got.

What it really all amounts to is that they want sex on demand, but find children inconvenient. So kill them.

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

Hierarchies

 

When Jordan Peterson explains that even lobsters have hierarchies, this proves he is a fascist.

Friend Xerxes claims that the early Christian church had no leaders. He quotes as evidence Saint Paul saying “There is no longer Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” All was rainbows and unicorns until the “’Fathers of the Early Church’ did their best to re-establish a hierarchy with bishops and priests, all male, running the church.”

This is not a tenable reading of the Bible. Jesus had thousands of disciples; yet he designated only twelve, all male, as apostles. When one, Judas, defected and committed suicide, the rest saw the need to select a replacement. This was plainly an established hierarchy, and established by Jesus himself. He shared some things only with them, speaking to others in parables.

"To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of God; but to others I speak in parables, so that 'looking they may not perceive, and listening they may not understand.'" – Luke 8:9-10.

He gave them specific commissions. Notably, what they bound or loosed on earth would be bound or loosed in heaven. That is a remarkable level of authority.

I recall giving a Bible course in Korea, and the students at first balking at my observation that there was a hierarchy in Heaven. Wouldn’t everyone being equal be an aspect of heaven? They resisted the idea, but then realized that it must be so, and that the Bible says it is so. There are ranks of angels e numerated in the Bible; there are elders sitting closer to the throne; Saint John is greatest of all on earth, but less than the least in heaven—so there is a “least” in heaven. And so on.

Life can’t be a pass-fail course. There must be some reward for heroic virtue.

Are you upset at the thought of a heaven where others would be greater than yourself? Then you are guilty of envy, and probably will not make it to heaven in the first place. This is the sin of Cain.

As to there being no Jew nor Greek in Christ, no male or female, this is the doctrine that all men are created equal, which is not the same as democracy, and democracy is not the same as having no hierarchy or leaders. It means we all have an equal chance at salvation, based on our own merits—“in Christ,” not necessarily in the secular world. No fellow Christian is to be judged by the colour of their skin, or their role in reproduction, or their parentage, but by their character and their own merit. It does not follow that each of us has an equal right to declare ourselves a doctor and practice medicine, say. There is indeed a difference in moral worth between, say, Charles Manson and Mahatma Gandhi. And it is right to make that distinction.

And there do indeed need to be leaders, just as there need to be doctors. Having no leaders is anarchy, not democracy. Democracy means we elect our leaders. Democracies have hierarchies: municipal, provincial, federal. Local member, cabinet minister, premier.

There is nothing immoral or inherently wrong about a hierarchy. 

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

Where's My Cheque?

 

The US Supreme Court decision that “affirmative action” programs for university admission are unconstitutional racial discrimination also makes a case that a great number of whites are entitled to reparations.

The left has long demanded reparations be paid out to blacks for slavery. San Francisco’s city government recently proposed giving each black citizen of the city $5 million. Yet nobody who suffered under slavery is still alive. Nobody who perpetrated the peculiar institution is still alive. Almost all American blacks have some European blood, quite possibly from slaveholders taking advantage of their position. Fewer than one percent of the US population, even during slave times, owned slaves. Most white Americans probably descend from more recent immigrants. Accordingly, the average black American is the individual most likely to owe himself or herself reparations, if anyone does; not the innocent general public who just happen to have the wrong colour of skin.

One might argue that, aside rom slavery, reparations are due for Jim Crow laws, for segregation in the US South. But the last of that was overturned by the civil rights acts in 1964-65. To have been personally subject to it, you would have to be over 65 or so now. And it would have affected you only for a brief period at that. To have been discriminated against in college admissions or for a job, you would have to be about 75.

By contrast, affirmative action in college admissions, systemically discriminating against whites and Asians, was introduced in the mid-Sixties and has continued until today. This means that every white native-born American alive today has suffered from systemic discrimination for most or all of their lives, and is justly entitled to reparations, if there is any argument for reparations at all.

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