He definitely took it to them in his speech. All those former presidents behind him smirking and looking down at Trump. Good for him. I don’t need a big Obama speech with flowery words and no action. This is a man on a mission. Just in time!
I'm someone who'd normally be very sensitive to the idea of an oligarchic takeover, but the fact that Zuckerberg, Bezos, et al paid homage to Trump shows how the political winds have shifted (and you don't need a weatherman to know which way it's blowing).
This will eventually be a problem. But I like the idea that now, the money that used to be on the left side is now on the right. Because the monster that the left has become these past years needs to not just be defeated, but eviscerated; destroyed; buried completely. And if some oligarchs help do that, God bless. I'll trade preferential tax treatment for billionaires for an end to gender ideology, DEI and the like.
It's a problem on Day One. If anything at all was attractive about Trump is was his appeal to populism. If he now has a gang of billionaires whispering in his ear it's hard to see how We The People will get a word in edgewise. And while the billionaire money may not be used as much for Democrats for a while, there's no evidence any of these guys have changed their mind policy-wise one iota. Moistly, they'll just warp Trumpian policy to suit their fancy. We've already seen how the billionaires have deflected policy on immigration (the H1B business). Oh, well, at least Vivek Ramaswamy has quit in a snit.
You’re absolutely wrong here. These guys have most certainly changed their policies. Zuckerberg got rid of his biased “fact-checkers”, for example. Bezos is reworking the Post away from its rabid leftism of these past several years.
These aren’t billionaires looking to control Trump. They are billionaires looking to preserve what they have by acknowledging the political reality of Trump’s populism.
You're going to wait a long, long time before any of these guys start marching in pro-Life protests or turn against any substantive aspects of the sexual revolution. They've already shown how utterly unwilling they are to see any limitations on H1B immigration. Once they get what they want on taxes, labor (non)regulation and crypto they'll drop Trump like the cow they've milked dry.
You're playing with vipers and hoping they only bite those you dislike.
I don't need the billiionaires on my side. I'd be happy if they just play it straight. With Bezos, for example, I'd be happy if the Post returned to what it was 10 years ago -- a moderately left of center but overall pretty reliable source of news. I used to subscribe to the Post and although they'd occasionally show their bias, it wasn't overwhelming. Then Trump came along and the Post (plus CNN, ABC, CBS, etc.) went insane. I don't want the Post, X, Facebook, Apple, etc. to be conservative. I just want them to be neutral.
That they are not actively obstructing free speech is not mere window dressing. No one at all expects any of them to convert to social conservatism. We just need to be able to use the infrastructure they developed without fear or favor.
I heard a MAGA person claim that the censorship was the worst in 2020. Guess who was president then? Sure, it was the pandemic but people seem to have forgotten censorship under Trump.
So? Trump wasn’t a dictator. Much of the federal government was actively undermining his policies at the time anyway. And censorship need not be directly at the hands of government officials. It may be enforced, for example, by social media companies acting at the behest of government officials.
That's still shifting with the wind. Who knows if Zuckerberg really had any commitment to those "fact checkers" in the first place? They were a concession to prevailing winds too. And not notably effective either. They became a joke almost immediately.
His Populism has always been phony, but when corporate liberals are masquerading as "the left" he shines in the darkness. He's a billionaire, and he cozies up to billionaires as long as they show the proper deference.
“I'm someone who'd normally be very sensitive to the idea of an oligarchic takeover”.
So why aren’t you? I know - if Biden had invited them it would be bad. But since it was Trump who invited them, it is good. Bad things transform magically into good things if Trump does them.
Because, first, these guys were all on Biden's "side" for years, and left cheered it - it was the natural order of things! - and now the left is on the wrong side of the deal, and perhaps they'll see the error of their ways. Probably not, but maybe. Then maybe we an all agree that rule by oligarchs is bad.
Second, whatever the issues surrounding rule by oligarchs, on a personal level it pales in comparison to trans indoctrination at my kids' school. The social issues at stake here are paramount in my approach to politics; and while no one's expecting Musk or Bezos or Zuckerberg to suddenly become social conservatives, that they stop censoring - encourage a greater range of debate and possibilities - allows social conservatism more room to breathe and move. That's not nothing, especially given that the other side wants NO room to breathe, NO room to move for social conservatives.
I have seen this in my own state, where the Republicans are corrupt as hell, totally in the pocket of big business and put those business interests first and foremost. But it occurs to me that we have indeed had socially conservative legislation - a good bit of it - and we would not have had that without the corrupt Republicans. That is - you want socially conservative legislation, you'd better be prepared to put up with a certain amount of corruption.
Whereas the left, when they run things, are equally as corrupt (it's just the faces/places that are different) and there's zero chance of socially conservative legislation - quite the opposite in fact.
Know which side of the bread gets the butter; grimace. And proceed accordingly.
One of the great fallacies of recent liberal sloganeering and manipulation was calling on corporate America to bully elected state legislatures by using the sheer mass of their financial power. For most of American history that would have decried as economic royalism, monarchism, or fascism. All of which it is. I know that many legislatures are gerrymandered and don't remotely represent the people -- I live in one of the most blatantly gerrymandered states, and that has only partially been rebalanced of late. But there is still a principle here. Its like calling on Attila the Hun to aid an oppressed village against the Roman legions.
Political winds are always shifting, and those who depend on fat government contracts or regulatory largesse always shift with them. Its the Vicar of Bray, writ large.
"To my Protestant brothers, and to all Christians (because there are very few of us in the West who have not deeply absorbed the structures of modern thought, despite our official confessions), that long era of deep Christianity is precisely what we need to recover in order to understand this unfolding apocalypse."
I quite agree. Thankfully there is a lot of good work happening now among thoughtful (and younger) Protestants to take stock of what we've inherited and do some retrieval work to go appropriate for ourselves the best of our shared pre-Reformation tradition. It will take time (a generation?) for this to trickle into the average pew.
Here is what I wrote in my review of LiW:
"I agree with Dreher that Western Christianity, and more specifically the reformed evangelicalism of which I am a part, needs to be thoughtfully disentangled from the philosophical assumptions of modernity. We ought to honest that our tribe has at times had a tendency to manifest exactly those traits that, according to Iain McGilchrist, characterizes left-brain dominated thinking, such as the uncritical adoption of modernist metaphysical assumptions, the tendency to focus in on theological minutiae, and the attempt to treat the Bible as if it was written by and for modern Westerners. Knowing this, we can thoughtfully bring balance without rejecting the fundamentals of what makes reformed evangelicalism what it is."
Re: that long era of deep Christianity is precisely what we need to recover in order to understand this unfolding apocalypse.
We never had that in the US-- our religious impulses (nationally, not in the case of every individual) were always a mile wide and inch deep. And I don't have a problem with that. Weak religion at the topmost level has the benefit of A) keeping the government out of religious matters B) preventing persecutions (no American St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre) and C) allowing religion at street level to be religion ("My kingdom is not of this world"), not an appendage of elite culture let alone politics.
Can we all agree that the prayers at the Benediction were absolutely awful? I was disgusted. Happy to see J.D. is now on deck. It's a time for some optimism.
Rod, 'Amen' to your blistering criticisms of the Biden administration. However, your starry-eyed outlook on a Trump being anything other than a self-absorbed, materialistic buffoon seems naive. I'm rather surprised that the author of such a compelling book like LIVE NOT BY LIES should be a bit more skeptical toward someone who regularly spews bull****. [Cue Mollie Hemingw
I've been pretty dismayed by Rod's embrace of Trump-- and now oligarchs like Musk as well-- guys whom Rod used to warn us about. Of course I can understand a reluctant vote for the guy. I know more than a few people who held their nose and voted for him while remaining clear eyed about how much an ass he was and how likely incompetent his second term would be.
Yes. Trump I can stomach. It's Musk* and, more so, Thiel who seem to epitomise everything Rod was supposed to be against. One of Musk's children was even born by surrogacy. I tend to put Musk and Thiel in the same box as Zuckerberg and Bezos.
I have a lot less respect for Rod's political instincts than I used to. I see myself as vaguely left in some ways, but socially conservative, edging towards theocratic fascist over things like transgenderism and surrogacy. I always used to think that Rod's takes were thought-provoking, even when I didn't agree, but he seems to be turning into a Trump cheerleader. I loathe Israel too.
*Admittedly, I admire Musk for his engagement with the UK's Pakistani rape-gang nightmare.
I can be calm about Trump. There is nothing to be gained by marching impotently in the streets, or issuing lengthy denunciations or vows of protest and resistance. There isn't a coherent basis to call on any significant part of the citizenry for effective resistance. He's going to do what he wants for the next two years, and its not clear if anything worth getting excited about will emerge in the meantime. But there's nothing to celebrate either.
You don't say what, so I can't respond substantively. There is very little to nothing I like about Trump, but I can enjoy seeing the liberals go apoplectic about their own Frankenstein monster.
What on earth makes you think that I look to Elon Musk as a family-values moral exemplar? I admire Musk's ambitious and what he's doing with X. I hate his transhumanism. You hate Musk and you hate Israel, so you're losing faith in my political instincts? Isn't it just that you disagree with me?
Rod has been in deep despair for some years, and Lord knows the world and North Atlantic political elites have given him cause for it. Despair, unfortunately, sends people looking for salvation in all the wrong places, which can often make things much worse.
Yeah he wants to be the peace president & he wants to take over the Panama Canal? Pick one. You can’t have both. Also the Gulf of Mexico is an international body of water & countries don’t get to name it whatever they want. If he wants to call it that, fine but nobody’s going to be printing new maps. The trans stuff I am totally behind. But are Executive Orders even constitutional? Presidents from both parties have been abusing them for years. Birthright citizenship is in the 14th Amendment. I would think the Constitution would have to be amended to get rid of it.
You know what I hate about Gulf of Mexico being Gulf of America , it’s not conservative ! It’s the Gulf of Mexico. Let it alone! I hate executive orders but Trump has to do it. That’s because Biden pumped it up so much . But someone has to stop this. I am - along my wife/- the only person I know who’s been to Greenland. Wonderful place! Trump is not insane here.I don’t know what’s in his mind but Greenland can’t be allowed to go out of the US sphere.
Right. Re-naming Mt. McKinley/Mt. Denali is one thing but The Gulf of Mexico is as natural to people as the English Channel or the Drake Passage.
Trump makes a point about Greenland. American businesses should negotiate deals with Greenland to exploit the mineral wealth. And we already have the base at Thule. Perhaps we need another. But the idea of buying it from Denmark is silly.
I don’t like Grover Cleveland much. I prefer Benjamin Harrison and McKinley. Although it is sad that Thomas Brackett Reed didn’t become President instead of McKinley.
Yes, Denali is a perfectly good American name. I was really surprised. Native Americans gave a lot of support to Trump. No need to do this, it has been Denali for a very long time now.
What phased me most was Trump's flat affect during the speech. It was like someone had given him an overdose of valium. He was just reading it without expression. At times, like a slow 3rd grader saying the words without grasping the sentences. On past occasions when read has read from the teleprompter he has read with some expression and enthusiasm, not today's weird flat affect. For much of the speech it sounded like he was seeing the words of the speech for the first time. - -I hope Trump recovers. The only similar incident I can think of is when he yelled through his first 2020 debate, then was diagnosed with Covid the next day. Not saying he has Covid, of course, but something was wrong today and I hope it is not permanent. (I saw bits of last night's rally and he was his usual self.)
I guess I sympathise with Native Americans, but I don't like the renaming of mountains like Denali. Who decides which NA tribe/language gets to name it?
"Gulf of America" is absurd. Should British people object to the Irish Sea? French to the English Channel (OK, I know they call it "La Manche", but not when speaking English). Koreans object to the Japan Sea, but everyone views them as absurd.
I saw some interviews with Greenlanders on Youtube, and, although they don't want to be part of the USA, they basically prefer the USA to Denmark. Denmark has an atrocious record in Greenland, and it was the USA that started economic modernisation during the occupation in WW2. They'd like independence, but are worried about economic collapse. I also think Denmark would be better off without Greenland, not just economically, but because its "antiracism" laws, which have been introduced because of Greenland, hamstring its tackling of the Muslim problem. Mind you, if anyone here really knows about Greenland, I'll be happy to be corrected.
When I was there, what I saw was a welfare state totally dependent on Denmark. There’s a story I could tell but won’t because I think I’d get reviled and am not in the mood! ( humorous aspects to this).
Denali is not the name of a tribe honored by the removal of McKinley. Denali is the traditional name of the mountain, time out of mind. McKinley is a name a gold prospector from Ohio bestowed upon it. The change to Denali was made by the people of Alaska, who overwhelmingly prefer it. Calling it McKinley won't go far or last long.
Yes. It was inhabited at an earlier date, but those people died out. The Inuit gradually moved across from eastern Siberia. They were the first people to develop a set of technologies for the high Arctic, and were much better suited than the Scandinavians. Nevertheless, Greenland as a strange outpost of mediaeval Christendom is an odd thought; the ruined church there is the oldest in the Americas.
How would Greenland leave the US "sphere"? We have wholly amicable relations with Denmark (which is one European country that has maintained a sensible immigration policy). We have a base there already, and assorted deals to prospect for mineral wealth. We're better off letting the Danes pay for the island's administrative needs while we can enjoy whatever positives it offers. As a rule empires tend to cost more than they are worth. We found that out in the Philippines.
Not comparable. Greenland has a very small population.I’m happy to have the Danes keep it . For them it’s a minor league Puerto Rico. But it needs to be watched.
I've been to Greenland. I am not troubled by our trying to purchase it. Alaska purchase, Lousiana purchase, Greenland purchase. We need more control in the Arctic, with Russa's area and China strangely trying to hone in there. - - Despite the mistake of giving it up, I think just announcing we are taking back the Panama Canal is pretty strange. Wouldn't that take a war, or is Panama just going to hand it over, and have a U.S Territory in the midst of their country? And erm...Gulf of America does seem like an insane joke.
The Greenland problem may be , its prime minister explicitly advocates independence. Per se , I have no problem with that but in a gigantic country with -,what- 80 ,000 people next to US - it’s very manipulatable . That’s an issue.
A Trump executive order can put the names Gulf of America on maps produced by US government agencies, ditto Mount McKinley. Everyone else will go right on doing what they choose -- including the people of Alaska who, regardless of race, creed, color, or party affiliation by and large prefer Denali to the name of some Ohio politician. It was Alaska that did the name change.
Mexico's new presidenta Claudia Sheinbaum recently trolled Trump by giving a speech with an early 17th-century map as a backdrop. The map labeled what is now the entire western US and Mexico as "America Mexico." She's a smart one, this Sheinbaum.
On oligarchy:,It would help if some of you would read Pareto, Michels and Mosca even James Burnaham. Look the world described in the Declaration of Independence doesn’t exist and never did.
People ignore the Trump's machiavellianism and even though facts are as stark as sun's light. Same people, culture that approved Obama, Biden will be redeemed by vulgarian? are you kidding me? who believes this nonsense? Sure trump can do some good things like sign EOs, but our founding principles are not profound b/c of entrenched power in DC (EOs). why do people cheer for unilateral, entrenched authority like this? and why is it heroic for Trump to address insanity and unprecedented negligence of open borders? any decent GOP president would do same to stop 7M+illegals crossing border and over four years.
Let's look at some uncomfortable facts for Trump groupies. Trump has already flip flopped on h1b visas and tik tok, sided with wealthy longshoreman's union to stop port automation, nominates surgeon general who believes sex is determined at birth, nominates HHS secretary, former heroin addict, who believes vax cause autism, takes partial credit for terrible terrible deal - israeli hostage return, promotes tariffs that make products and services more expensive for americans, rejects even in principle conservatives plea to incorporate life, traditional family in gop platform, supports lgbt lifestle that weakens traditional families and opens door to trans, sues iowa pollster (can't make this up. assault on free speech), says he will end birthright citizenship and even though he does not have authority (again can't make this up) and list goes on.
almost as disgraceful as above, billionaire trump family hawks merchandise during presidencies and including now hawking trump and melania pixels (not even cypto) that they hope will bring billions more into Trump family coffers. during presidency and w/o hawking, Trump family still will make millions in trump name. Still never enough money for the Trump vultures. The Trumps are almost as narcissistic as Bidens in their lust for money and prestige.
JD better hope Trump does not have train wreck over next four years. If so , he won't win in 2028 b/c he will have to defend all of Trump's lies.
True. The irony is this. Two men , Trump & Vance , who are very successful in part due to our system of gov’t , are leaders of movement, populism, that tells the poor that the system is in many ways stacked against them. Ridiculous. All people have to deal with unfairnesses in life & some are due to gov’t.
There is unfairness for every human being. Some folks are born here & others in Sudan. Wealthy have more connections. Some have greater intelligence & some have more responsible & loving parents. My father’s family survived Stalin, Hitler , made it to USA with nothing & built a good life. I am not opposed to gov’t help. But better most try & commit to idea that they will persevere in midst of life’s obstacles & make a good life for themselves & family. & very important : nobody can force you to be ungrateful.
My BIL always gives me the side eye when I broach topics that has any whiff of conspiracy talk or shades of woo. He’s in good company with many evangelical Christians who still buy into modernity and the matrix we live in. I just shake my head and think, do they even believe the stories in the Bible? It’s weird that they can believe in miracles but when it’s all around them, they think it’s crazy talk.
I am sure that I would agree with virtually all of Trump's soon-to-be-announced Executive Orders but I am a very leery of government by Executive Orders. Seems to me that the Legislative branch has surrendered many of its powers and prerogatives. Trump's inaugural speech was pretty strident and even insulting to the presidential guests. But maybe the ex-presidents shouldn't have come. It's not a requirement for ex-presidents to attend inaugurations. For instance, John Adams high-tailed it to Massachusetts long before Thomas Jefferson's inauguration. Presidents Clinton, Bush, Obama and Biden needn't have attended.
Re: Seems to me that the Legislative branch has surrendered many of its powers and prerogatives.
Amen! That's what got us into the mess we find ourselves in now. They relocated the responsibility (and related power/authority) to bureaucrats so they didn't have to risk being kicked off the gravy train that politics has become.
The role of judges is to restrain congress or the executive branch when they exceed the powers granted to them by the constitution. Its very important to preserve that. Its equally important to affirm that it is not the role of the courts to consider whether legislative acts are wise, prudent, or reasonable, if they are within constitutional parameters.
I don't think Clinton, Bush or Obama would be involved with Trump's near-assassinations. But I wouldn't put it past someone in the Biden Administration.
We now almost nothing about that crazed teenager. No social media, no texts or emails. It's as if the Manchurian Candidate was born & raised in Pennsylvania, pre-programmed as it were, and then activated by, say, a certain Antony Blinken...
A teenager who was not allowed to join his high school shooting team due to being a poor shot seems like a bad pick for a Manchurian Candidate assassin.
I started reading Pasulka’s book last night. My question then and on reading this post this morning is whether the conclusion is that the UAPs are always demonic. Many of the references, including here with the star and angels in the Bethlehem sky, or the dove over Jesus’s head, are sightings we would consider angelic. Surely some of them now would be “good” as well?
Not the ones who quickly vanish when the witness/target prays or utters the name of Jesus. Do you know of any accounts in which a target did this and the mysterious object did NOT scoot away? If so, please share -- such accounts need to be studied too!
I wish I did! But I’m a literature person. The episode I had in mind is the end of That Hideous Strength, obviously fictional, when Ransom is whisked away in an oblong box shaped like a coffin to be taken back to Perelandra (Venus). Lewis got so many things right in that book—I notice more every time I read it—and he clearly thought there were two sides to this interplanetary war. He did make it clear the “bad” entities had more sway here on earth, but there were a few good ones represented, too. I’m just curious if there’s a corollary in the real world.
Biden's multitude of pardons are unseemly but a perfect exclamation point on an unseemly president, one of America's worst. Goodbye, Mr. Biden. History will not be kind to you.
Remember, though, that he did, however awkwardly and painfully, get the USA out of the Afghan quagmire. Even if the rest of his presidency is viewed as problematic or even a fiasco, he can carve his name with pride for that accomplishment, and the USA owes him a significant debt of gratitude for it.
It was Trump who negotiated the Afghan settlement-- and that all but guaranteed the return of the Taliban to power. Whether one wants to praise our exit or decry it, that can't be done without acknowledging Trump's role in it.
The reality is that, thanks to Biden, no more American boys are being killed or left permanently damaged in body, mind, and spirit by that nightmare and no more American treasure is being poured into that particular bottomless pit. Biden, and Biden alone, brought it to an end. That is a major accomplishment.
I'm sorry, but that's just morally retarded. As Jon correctly (gonna be one of those days, apparently) points out, Trump was working on exiting Afghanistan and was, in fact, stymied in getting it done in no small part by his staff, including the odious General Milley who received a preemptive pardon this morning.
I'm not arguing that leaving Afghanistan wasn't ultimately the correct thing to do and that the Taliban wouldn't have inevitably returned to power. Biden's slapdash exit as opposed to the staged withdrawal that Trump was reportedly negotiating resulted in the deaths of more of our service people as well as the deaths of numerous Afghani civilians. The manner in which a thing is done creates moral issues itself.
Those of us who aren't moral retards still remember the images of desperate people falling off of our planes. We remember the horror and are outraged that in the horror and fog of our hasty withdrawal, we drone struck civilians employed by NGOs, claimed that we thought it was Taliban, and then didn't hold anyone responsible.
Those of us who aren't moral retards also remember that the Biden administration left dozens, maybe even hundreds, of our Afghan collaborators abandoned to the tender mercies of the Taliban to the point that private efforts had to be undertaken to try to rescue some of them. Efforts that were slandered by regime media to the point that CNN just lost a defamation case over it last week.
Finally, although it is a minor point compared to the human tragedies I've already listed, our slapdash exit abandoned billions of dollars of equipment to the Taliban to use against their own people as well as their regional enemies. That's another moral problem caused by Biden's "awkward" exit.
You are absolutely correct. And the weapons "left behind" have enabled the Islamist Taliban terrorists to have a modern army with arms readily available for sale in a black market. IIRC Biden's administration was continuing to send significant $$ to the Taliban.
Trump finalized the negotiation, and Biden has no room left unless he chose to abrogate the agreement -- which probably wouldn't have been effectively supported by what was left of "our" Afghan government. Trump preening about the art of the deal.
Biden absolutely had the final determination as to the scheduling and manner of the withdrawal. IIRC, he scrapped Trump's timetable for an orderly withdrawal after the "fighting season" was over in favor of a mad scramble to get out ASAP that resulted in chaos, disorder, and extra needless deaths, especially of Afghans. All of this was hashed out and no one seriously disputes it.
No one here, especially me, is arguing that we should not have withdrawn from Afghanistan. It should have happened earlier, but Trump was hamstrung by his own generals until the end of his administration. This is also documented and not seriously disputed.
The manner of the withdrawal and the chaos and needless death that followed is absolutely on Biden.
Awkward and painful doesn't begin to describe the Afghan exit. And suggesting it's a point of pride and deserving of gratitude ranks down there with asking "Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, did you enjoy the play?"
Meh. Once we left it is inevitable the Taliban would take power. The idea we could ave remade Afghanistan as some sort of secular democracy was cookoo all along, so of course the whole business was not going ti end well.
You are British, correct, Colin ? Biden alons got the USA out of Afghanistan? This seems to be an example of BBC news. Trump has a plan for withdrawal. No soldier had died in 18 months. We had basically a caretaker force of 2500 there. They were being pulled out as appropriate so that the Tablban with their nightmarish torture of women, did not take back over. We left 80 billion dollars of equipment, we gave up an air force base near China, we left our assets there so that they and their families could be killed. Left even all our dogs to die. Afghanistan is now terrorist training and hiding headquarters once again. This did not have to be, the Taliban did not have to take over, but Biden just said "everyboday out, soldierrs first, then just run for the airport if you can get there." Biden is not just a criminal but a war criminal as far as I am concerned.
Not British, but much worse - Canadian - and the correct analogy would be the CBC - worse in every way than the BBC (the other 2 major Canadian networks, Global and CTV, both “private”, are no better).
I know that the Doha Agreement, by which Trump sold the Afghan government down the river, set the groundwork on which Biden operated. Perhaps if Trump had been re-elected he might have been able to pull off a peaceful withdrawal without all the chaos and bloodshed, but I’m skeptical. One does not dismount easily from a tiger. At some point the Afghan government and their forces, their credibility and authority totally deflated, would have had to deal with the Taliban alone and (pardon
Love the CBC part :) - My honest evaluation is that the 2500 soldiers could have stayed put - no American had died for 18 months. Being there benefiited our country. We did not have to withdraw all our people until we had reason to believe the Taliban would not take over upon withdrawal, and we never had such reason. - -But even if I am wrong and we had to get every soldier out, it did not have to be done in the horrible way Biden did it, which saw hundreds die unnecessarily. (And we never planned to give up Baghram under Trump.)
I was giving the benefit of the doubt, but you know what? Your Trump Derangement Syndrome is flaring up today and you're just lying, mostly to yourself, about the actual circumstances and manner of the withdrawal.
He pardoned them so they would not be unjustly harassed by the Trump DOJ. But it is a stupid mistake. Let Trump lawlessly harass them. It will only hurt him and make them look like heroes.
Twice Rod used the term "new religion" and I have to say that that term is not conducive to sounding the requisite alarm. It's not new and it's not a religion. It's old Satan's rebellion. All that is new is all that has ever been "new" about the New Age: which disguises he uses and which vehicles he rides in on.
Yes, and as usual, Rod gets his slap in at Protestantism. And just what does he mean that "the institutions of Christianity are not remotely ready to deal with this"?
Is he referring to the thousands of Protestant pastors and teachers who have been teaching generations of believers to be wary of accepting supposedly spiritual phenomena as being of God? That all such phenomena must "be tried" against the teaching of The Word? I have in mind the neo Pentecostal movement which was at its public zenith fifty years ago, but which has continued in a quieter, almost underground way. Rod's Orthodox "spirituality" ( and I couch it that way to knock Orthodoxy, not Rod ) is as thought free and feelings based as Pentecostalism.
But you understand very well that the Eastern Orthodox notwithstanding, The New Testament teaches that God's will for us is that we be transformed in Christ by the renewing of our minds, not the refreshing of our feelings. All true devotion, all capacity to live in wonder, moves in train with the renewing of our minds.
Ready for what? I don't get Rod's apocalyptism. If Kamala Harris were being inaugurated today I would understand his dark foreboding, but right in this piece he's also rejoicing that Trump is back. OK, but he can't have it both ways.
(OK, it's possible some catastrophe will befall us (nuclear war...) and none of us will be ready for that-- nothing unique about today's churches)
What UFO religion? Yes, there's long been some cookoo cults making lurid claims about little green men and flying saucers. So what? We've put up with all manner of crazypants cults, including a couple that turned suicidal-- and of course Islamic jihadis, who are still a danger.
Sure. He diagnoses well, but what is his prescription? I’d be inclined to think he was on to something if he were banging away obsessively about the need for Bible study.
Help me here. Is it true that some denominations deny that demonic influences exist (as Rod seems to say)? Despite what the Gospels say? If true, then any prescription has to begin with correcting that.
Maybe not in theology, but certainly in practice. You can't get to wonder by seeking it. You must seek God and His righteousness ( salvation in Jesus Christ, and the kind of transformation which only dwelling upon The Word can give someone ), then all of those marvelous things will be given to you - but even then, it's a weak spirituality which expects to get all that much wonder here. God hides Himself. We see through a glass darkly. We walk by faith, not by sight.
And just how much Bible study do the Orthodox engage in? Do you have Bible reading plans, that is, the entirety of the Scriptures in a year? Are you encouraged to hide the Word in your hearts, that you might not sin against Him? Do your priests teach expositorily? Are laity encouraged to teach Sunday School classes? Do the Eastern Orthodox even have Sunday schools?
If you really wanted to recover the fullness of Christianity, I would think you would take seriously what God says about every Christian's being part of a royal priesthood.
You seem to forget that I was a Protestant for almost 35 years of my life, and a Bible college educated one at that. I know Protestantism far better than you know Orthodoxy.
Have you even read Rod's book? If so I think you very much missed the point. And if you so strongly disagree with it, why do you continue hanging around here?
I don't read Rod as specifically bagging on Protestantism. His thesis is that Nominalism (which subtly changed the way we look at the nature of things), Humanism (which shifted the emphasis from God to humanity as the measure of things) and the Renaissance / Enlightenment (prioritizing reason above all else) affected all Western Christianity after about 1400, disenchanting Western Christianity (including Catholics such as myself) as a whole in a way that leaves it the West centuries out of practice for a society that is now re-enchanting and could break either good or bad.
Per thesis, Orthodoxy missed all that being overwhelmingly in countries that were centuries behind what was happening in the West between 1400 and Peter the Great. A quirk of history and pace of development, if you please. Relative better standing in re: enchantment, if only by omission.
By "not ready" I think Rod means that seminaries and theologians of the various Christian threads haven't sufficiently considered what alien contact might mean and/or prepared their flocks. (Yes, we should test 'all the spirits', but we first have to convince society that spirits matter.)
How much Orthodox (and by extension Catholic, since it's from the same root) spirituality have you actually read, whereby you can make such a judgement?
The presidential pardon power goes back centuries (it was originally a power of the monarchy). Nothing "bizarre" about it.
Re: A conservative friend points out that this was already done when Ford pardoned Nixon. Damn.
Yep. Maybe there needs to be a constitutional amendment setting some limits to the pardon power? If so, it would also behoove us to find some way to ban the use of "revenge" prosecutions when power changes hands.
Re: ...the Equal Rights Amendment was ratified, through executive fiat.
Which had no force of law-- it was just his opinion and it flew like a lead zeppelin.
Re: The Executive Order ends the practice of housing men in women’s prisons and taxpayer funded “transition” for male prisoners.
I'm pretty sure that will only be applicable to federal prisons and prisoners. If Trump imagines he can impose state level policies by EO fiat we have a very big problem just coming out the gate
Re: America is back.
Nope. America never went anywhere. Sensible people do not conflate whatever pack of fools is running things in DC with America as a nation.
It might be a good idea to end a President's pardon power on October 31st of the year before his/her term ends. That way pardons would have to be given before the November election. Regarding revenge prosecutions, I don't know how you could ban that legally. However, my guess is that the way it backfired in Trump's case will give everyone else (hopefully including Trump) a pretty compelling reason not to do it.
It is too bad that our host returns to his home state of Louisiana and Louisiana greets him with some of the coldest weather in Louisiana's history. It is frigid in most of America right now, proof of Global Warming bringing us a warmer climate. Here in the mountains of West Virginia, we had six inches of snow yesterday and our low temperature tonight is expected to be close to zero. One can only hope that Rod Dreher has his fill of Cajun cooking, some of the best food in the world.
Back when Rod first moved back to Louisiana they had a small snowstorm and Rod posted rather happily about his kids getting to play in snow in St. Francisville, though a couple people commented to criticize him and his wife for giving the kids a day off from schooling.
One of the benefits of homeschooling is that the teacher can let the children just be children. My atheist son, at age 16, built his own igloo after a snowstorm. And he's a builder at 25. He learned to build.
You Americans should return to Celsius. It makes the most sense - zero is when water freezes. Or at least adopt Kelvin - then zero is absolute zero. Fahrenheit doesn’t mean anything, the zero is just random.
Celcius has never been the scale the general public used in the United States. It doesn't matter how much sense it makes or how arbitrary Farenhight is, you get your sense of what heat feels like from your community as a child.
Of everything in the metric system, Celsius is by far the dumbest. Unlike the other units, it’s useless for science (where you’d want to use Kelvin, the actual SI unit), and it’s nowhere near as practical for everyday human use. Fahrenheit has 0 as really, really cold and 100 as really, really hot. That makes sense. I don’t really care what numbers are assigned to the boiling and freezing points of water; I know what ice looks like and I can tell when the pot starts boiling.
Of course its arbitrary, but we're used to it. If you say zero degrees my mental reflexes just don't get a sense of the melting point of snow. And as Andrew ways, Celsius was never in general use, so we can't return to it. Also, it was easier to fathom when it was called centigrade, but someone decided it should be Named for Someone.
We were never on Celsius. Sure, a few lefties tried to jam the metric system down our throats but we held out. The Metric System comes from the French Revolution and Napoleon. I like neither.
The Rankine scale is the Kelvin scale with Fahrenheit gradations.
Actually, the U.S. system IS legally based on the metric system. However, two points should be made.
First, conversion to the metric system has led to accidents, such as the Gimli Glider incident in Canada in 1983.
Second, metric measurements are liable to scale errors. For example, look at the nuclear medicine patients who have died when technicians have confused millirems with microrems.
In the part of Louisianna where Rod is from the average January low (coldest temp in the day) is 5 C . On the other hand people in Lousianna think nothing of heat that puts people in to the hospital in Europe, and that was true long before the advent of air conditioning.
When the global temperature was a bit cooler, the coldest arctic air stayed north of the Arctic circle. With higher temperatures comes more wind in the Arctic winter, which pushed more cold air masses further south. I saw that coming several years ago when we started having cold rains all through October, where the midwest used to have glorious sunny days most of the month. Less ice cap, more evaporation over the Arctic, more rains. We're having colder springs and warmer autumns. It will take a few centuries, but the ultimate natural correction is another ice age. That has generally happened when the sea level where the Atlantic and Arctic meet rises to the point that the waters of both oceans mix, the cold springs extend into the summer, and over a hundred years of snowfall that doesn't entirely melt, glaciers build up rapidly. This was all studied and published decades before Global Warming became a political football.
He definitely took it to them in his speech. All those former presidents behind him smirking and looking down at Trump. Good for him. I don’t need a big Obama speech with flowery words and no action. This is a man on a mission. Just in time!
“Either these people are lunatics, or they are at the vanguard of a new religion, one that is intimately tied to technology.”
The two possibilities aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive!
Embrace the power of "and."
I'm someone who'd normally be very sensitive to the idea of an oligarchic takeover, but the fact that Zuckerberg, Bezos, et al paid homage to Trump shows how the political winds have shifted (and you don't need a weatherman to know which way it's blowing).
This will eventually be a problem. But I like the idea that now, the money that used to be on the left side is now on the right. Because the monster that the left has become these past years needs to not just be defeated, but eviscerated; destroyed; buried completely. And if some oligarchs help do that, God bless. I'll trade preferential tax treatment for billionaires for an end to gender ideology, DEI and the like.
Re: This will eventually be a problem.
It's a problem on Day One. If anything at all was attractive about Trump is was his appeal to populism. If he now has a gang of billionaires whispering in his ear it's hard to see how We The People will get a word in edgewise. And while the billionaire money may not be used as much for Democrats for a while, there's no evidence any of these guys have changed their mind policy-wise one iota. Moistly, they'll just warp Trumpian policy to suit their fancy. We've already seen how the billionaires have deflected policy on immigration (the H1B business). Oh, well, at least Vivek Ramaswamy has quit in a snit.
You’re absolutely wrong here. These guys have most certainly changed their policies. Zuckerberg got rid of his biased “fact-checkers”, for example. Bezos is reworking the Post away from its rabid leftism of these past several years.
These aren’t billionaires looking to control Trump. They are billionaires looking to preserve what they have by acknowledging the political reality of Trump’s populism.
You’ve got everything completely backwards.
Mere window dressing changes.
You're going to wait a long, long time before any of these guys start marching in pro-Life protests or turn against any substantive aspects of the sexual revolution. They've already shown how utterly unwilling they are to see any limitations on H1B immigration. Once they get what they want on taxes, labor (non)regulation and crypto they'll drop Trump like the cow they've milked dry.
You're playing with vipers and hoping they only bite those you dislike.
Jon nobody outside your imagination thinks these guys are going to suddenly become social conservatives.
Obviously I don't either. I'm pointing out that they aren't on your side, on any significant issues (unless you;rte a tax cut fan boy).
Jon do you think other people here think that they are going to become social conservatives?
I don't need the billiionaires on my side. I'd be happy if they just play it straight. With Bezos, for example, I'd be happy if the Post returned to what it was 10 years ago -- a moderately left of center but overall pretty reliable source of news. I used to subscribe to the Post and although they'd occasionally show their bias, it wasn't overwhelming. Then Trump came along and the Post (plus CNN, ABC, CBS, etc.) went insane. I don't want the Post, X, Facebook, Apple, etc. to be conservative. I just want them to be neutral.
They don't have to. They just have to bow and scrape.
I don't think it's really even that. I think they just want to be on the winning team, whomever that may be.
That they are not actively obstructing free speech is not mere window dressing. No one at all expects any of them to convert to social conservatism. We just need to be able to use the infrastructure they developed without fear or favor.
Biden intimidating Zuckerberg - bad
Trump intimidating Zuckerberg - good
Every bad thing magically transforms into a good thing as soon as Trump does it.
At least free speech has a chance with Trump in office.
I heard a MAGA person claim that the censorship was the worst in 2020. Guess who was president then? Sure, it was the pandemic but people seem to have forgotten censorship under Trump.
So? Trump wasn’t a dictator. Much of the federal government was actively undermining his policies at the time anyway. And censorship need not be directly at the hands of government officials. It may be enforced, for example, by social media companies acting at the behest of government officials.
That's still shifting with the wind. Who knows if Zuckerberg really had any commitment to those "fact checkers" in the first place? They were a concession to prevailing winds too. And not notably effective either. They became a joke almost immediately.
His Populism has always been phony, but when corporate liberals are masquerading as "the left" he shines in the darkness. He's a billionaire, and he cozies up to billionaires as long as they show the proper deference.
“I'm someone who'd normally be very sensitive to the idea of an oligarchic takeover”.
So why aren’t you? I know - if Biden had invited them it would be bad. But since it was Trump who invited them, it is good. Bad things transform magically into good things if Trump does them.
Because, first, these guys were all on Biden's "side" for years, and left cheered it - it was the natural order of things! - and now the left is on the wrong side of the deal, and perhaps they'll see the error of their ways. Probably not, but maybe. Then maybe we an all agree that rule by oligarchs is bad.
Second, whatever the issues surrounding rule by oligarchs, on a personal level it pales in comparison to trans indoctrination at my kids' school. The social issues at stake here are paramount in my approach to politics; and while no one's expecting Musk or Bezos or Zuckerberg to suddenly become social conservatives, that they stop censoring - encourage a greater range of debate and possibilities - allows social conservatism more room to breathe and move. That's not nothing, especially given that the other side wants NO room to breathe, NO room to move for social conservatives.
I have seen this in my own state, where the Republicans are corrupt as hell, totally in the pocket of big business and put those business interests first and foremost. But it occurs to me that we have indeed had socially conservative legislation - a good bit of it - and we would not have had that without the corrupt Republicans. That is - you want socially conservative legislation, you'd better be prepared to put up with a certain amount of corruption.
Whereas the left, when they run things, are equally as corrupt (it's just the faces/places that are different) and there's zero chance of socially conservative legislation - quite the opposite in fact.
Know which side of the bread gets the butter; grimace. And proceed accordingly.
One of the great fallacies of recent liberal sloganeering and manipulation was calling on corporate America to bully elected state legislatures by using the sheer mass of their financial power. For most of American history that would have decried as economic royalism, monarchism, or fascism. All of which it is. I know that many legislatures are gerrymandered and don't remotely represent the people -- I live in one of the most blatantly gerrymandered states, and that has only partially been rebalanced of late. But there is still a principle here. Its like calling on Attila the Hun to aid an oppressed village against the Roman legions.
Political winds are always shifting, and those who depend on fat government contracts or regulatory largesse always shift with them. Its the Vicar of Bray, writ large.
America!
This is one of our better days.
"To my Protestant brothers, and to all Christians (because there are very few of us in the West who have not deeply absorbed the structures of modern thought, despite our official confessions), that long era of deep Christianity is precisely what we need to recover in order to understand this unfolding apocalypse."
I quite agree. Thankfully there is a lot of good work happening now among thoughtful (and younger) Protestants to take stock of what we've inherited and do some retrieval work to go appropriate for ourselves the best of our shared pre-Reformation tradition. It will take time (a generation?) for this to trickle into the average pew.
Here is what I wrote in my review of LiW:
"I agree with Dreher that Western Christianity, and more specifically the reformed evangelicalism of which I am a part, needs to be thoughtfully disentangled from the philosophical assumptions of modernity. We ought to honest that our tribe has at times had a tendency to manifest exactly those traits that, according to Iain McGilchrist, characterizes left-brain dominated thinking, such as the uncritical adoption of modernist metaphysical assumptions, the tendency to focus in on theological minutiae, and the attempt to treat the Bible as if it was written by and for modern Westerners. Knowing this, we can thoughtfully bring balance without rejecting the fundamentals of what makes reformed evangelicalism what it is."
Re: that long era of deep Christianity is precisely what we need to recover in order to understand this unfolding apocalypse.
We never had that in the US-- our religious impulses (nationally, not in the case of every individual) were always a mile wide and inch deep. And I don't have a problem with that. Weak religion at the topmost level has the benefit of A) keeping the government out of religious matters B) preventing persecutions (no American St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre) and C) allowing religion at street level to be religion ("My kingdom is not of this world"), not an appendage of elite culture let alone politics.
Maybe you should just become Catholic.
Can we all agree that the prayers at the Benediction were absolutely awful? I was disgusted. Happy to see J.D. is now on deck. It's a time for some optimism.
The Martin Luther King redux and amalgamation was an embarrassment.
But Trump loved it. He was smiling. The media report that afterwards he praised the guy.
J.D. Vance on the other hand had a pained expression and Usha looked troubled.
Trump is ever the congenial host.
Time, yes. Cause, no.
Rod, 'Amen' to your blistering criticisms of the Biden administration. However, your starry-eyed outlook on a Trump being anything other than a self-absorbed, materialistic buffoon seems naive. I'm rather surprised that the author of such a compelling book like LIVE NOT BY LIES should be a bit more skeptical toward someone who regularly spews bull****. [Cue Mollie Hemingw
I've been pretty dismayed by Rod's embrace of Trump-- and now oligarchs like Musk as well-- guys whom Rod used to warn us about. Of course I can understand a reluctant vote for the guy. I know more than a few people who held their nose and voted for him while remaining clear eyed about how much an ass he was and how likely incompetent his second term would be.
Yes. Trump I can stomach. It's Musk* and, more so, Thiel who seem to epitomise everything Rod was supposed to be against. One of Musk's children was even born by surrogacy. I tend to put Musk and Thiel in the same box as Zuckerberg and Bezos.
I have a lot less respect for Rod's political instincts than I used to. I see myself as vaguely left in some ways, but socially conservative, edging towards theocratic fascist over things like transgenderism and surrogacy. I always used to think that Rod's takes were thought-provoking, even when I didn't agree, but he seems to be turning into a Trump cheerleader. I loathe Israel too.
*Admittedly, I admire Musk for his engagement with the UK's Pakistani rape-gang nightmare.
I can be calm about Trump. There is nothing to be gained by marching impotently in the streets, or issuing lengthy denunciations or vows of protest and resistance. There isn't a coherent basis to call on any significant part of the citizenry for effective resistance. He's going to do what he wants for the next two years, and its not clear if anything worth getting excited about will emerge in the meantime. But there's nothing to celebrate either.
There are things I like about Trump. Musk and Thiel are another issue.
You don't say what, so I can't respond substantively. There is very little to nothing I like about Trump, but I can enjoy seeing the liberals go apoplectic about their own Frankenstein monster.
What on earth makes you think that I look to Elon Musk as a family-values moral exemplar? I admire Musk's ambitious and what he's doing with X. I hate his transhumanism. You hate Musk and you hate Israel, so you're losing faith in my political instincts? Isn't it just that you disagree with me?
Rod has been in deep despair for some years, and Lord knows the world and North Atlantic political elites have given him cause for it. Despair, unfortunately, sends people looking for salvation in all the wrong places, which can often make things much worse.
Yeah he wants to be the peace president & he wants to take over the Panama Canal? Pick one. You can’t have both. Also the Gulf of Mexico is an international body of water & countries don’t get to name it whatever they want. If he wants to call it that, fine but nobody’s going to be printing new maps. The trans stuff I am totally behind. But are Executive Orders even constitutional? Presidents from both parties have been abusing them for years. Birthright citizenship is in the 14th Amendment. I would think the Constitution would have to be amended to get rid of it.
We’ll see how much of this happens.
You know what I hate about Gulf of Mexico being Gulf of America , it’s not conservative ! It’s the Gulf of Mexico. Let it alone! I hate executive orders but Trump has to do it. That’s because Biden pumped it up so much . But someone has to stop this. I am - along my wife/- the only person I know who’s been to Greenland. Wonderful place! Trump is not insane here.I don’t know what’s in his mind but Greenland can’t be allowed to go out of the US sphere.
Right. Re-naming Mt. McKinley/Mt. Denali is one thing but The Gulf of Mexico is as natural to people as the English Channel or the Drake Passage.
Trump makes a point about Greenland. American businesses should negotiate deals with Greenland to exploit the mineral wealth. And we already have the base at Thule. Perhaps we need another. But the idea of buying it from Denmark is silly.
Let me add McKinley is not a favorite of mine. I like Grover Cleveland.,On Greenland , we need to watch.
I don’t like Grover Cleveland much. I prefer Benjamin Harrison and McKinley. Although it is sad that Thomas Brackett Reed didn’t become President instead of McKinley.
Cleveland had sense enough to oppose American imperialist expansion at its worst.
McKinley was kind to his epileptic wife.
Denali is a perfectly good American name.
Yes, Denali is a perfectly good American name. I was really surprised. Native Americans gave a lot of support to Trump. No need to do this, it has been Denali for a very long time now.
What phased me most was Trump's flat affect during the speech. It was like someone had given him an overdose of valium. He was just reading it without expression. At times, like a slow 3rd grader saying the words without grasping the sentences. On past occasions when read has read from the teleprompter he has read with some expression and enthusiasm, not today's weird flat affect. For much of the speech it sounded like he was seeing the words of the speech for the first time. - -I hope Trump recovers. The only similar incident I can think of is when he yelled through his first 2020 debate, then was diagnosed with Covid the next day. Not saying he has Covid, of course, but something was wrong today and I hope it is not permanent. (I saw bits of last night's rally and he was his usual self.)
Isn't renaming places all a bit banana republic?
I guess I sympathise with Native Americans, but I don't like the renaming of mountains like Denali. Who decides which NA tribe/language gets to name it?
"Gulf of America" is absurd. Should British people object to the Irish Sea? French to the English Channel (OK, I know they call it "La Manche", but not when speaking English). Koreans object to the Japan Sea, but everyone views them as absurd.
I saw some interviews with Greenlanders on Youtube, and, although they don't want to be part of the USA, they basically prefer the USA to Denmark. Denmark has an atrocious record in Greenland, and it was the USA that started economic modernisation during the occupation in WW2. They'd like independence, but are worried about economic collapse. I also think Denmark would be better off without Greenland, not just economically, but because its "antiracism" laws, which have been introduced because of Greenland, hamstring its tackling of the Muslim problem. Mind you, if anyone here really knows about Greenland, I'll be happy to be corrected.
When I was there, what I saw was a welfare state totally dependent on Denmark. There’s a story I could tell but won’t because I think I’d get reviled and am not in the mood! ( humorous aspects to this).
You are right. Greenland is a welfare state financially dependent on Denmark.
Denali is not the name of a tribe honored by the removal of McKinley. Denali is the traditional name of the mountain, time out of mind. McKinley is a name a gold prospector from Ohio bestowed upon it. The change to Denali was made by the people of Alaska, who overwhelmingly prefer it. Calling it McKinley won't go far or last long.
One fact that is little known is that the Norse PRECEDED the Inuit in Greenland .
Yes. It was inhabited at an earlier date, but those people died out. The Inuit gradually moved across from eastern Siberia. They were the first people to develop a set of technologies for the high Arctic, and were much better suited than the Scandinavians. Nevertheless, Greenland as a strange outpost of mediaeval Christendom is an odd thought; the ruined church there is the oldest in the Americas.
We already have enough welfare dependencies in the South Pacific and Caribbean. We don't need another in the Arctic .
But Trump dreams of a great empire. Greenland first, America last.
How would Greenland leave the US "sphere"? We have wholly amicable relations with Denmark (which is one European country that has maintained a sensible immigration policy). We have a base there already, and assorted deals to prospect for mineral wealth. We're better off letting the Danes pay for the island's administrative needs while we can enjoy whatever positives it offers. As a rule empires tend to cost more than they are worth. We found that out in the Philippines.
Not comparable. Greenland has a very small population.I’m happy to have the Danes keep it . For them it’s a minor league Puerto Rico. But it needs to be watched.
I've been to Greenland. I am not troubled by our trying to purchase it. Alaska purchase, Lousiana purchase, Greenland purchase. We need more control in the Arctic, with Russa's area and China strangely trying to hone in there. - - Despite the mistake of giving it up, I think just announcing we are taking back the Panama Canal is pretty strange. Wouldn't that take a war, or is Panama just going to hand it over, and have a U.S Territory in the midst of their country? And erm...Gulf of America does seem like an insane joke.
The Greenland problem may be , its prime minister explicitly advocates independence. Per se , I have no problem with that but in a gigantic country with -,what- 80 ,000 people next to US - it’s very manipulatable . That’s an issue.
It's actually between Iceland and Canada. What do they think about it?
Yes -I know but it’s not too far distant from say Maine.
I agree, it's stupid. Nobody asked for that.
A Trump executive order can put the names Gulf of America on maps produced by US government agencies, ditto Mount McKinley. Everyone else will go right on doing what they choose -- including the people of Alaska who, regardless of race, creed, color, or party affiliation by and large prefer Denali to the name of some Ohio politician. It was Alaska that did the name change.
Mexico's new presidenta Claudia Sheinbaum recently trolled Trump by giving a speech with an early 17th-century map as a backdrop. The map labeled what is now the entire western US and Mexico as "America Mexico." She's a smart one, this Sheinbaum.
Not really!
I think you’ve listed all the weak spots in the program.
Rod simply puts his trust in princes.
That's a bit of a cheap shot towards, Rod.
I was slightly unfair to Rod. He does have a tendency to naively believe in some people though.
At the moment he seems to be doing a good deal of it. He's better than that, and will hopefully recover.
No that’s not his problem. He has others but that’s not one.
On oligarchy:,It would help if some of you would read Pareto, Michels and Mosca even James Burnaham. Look the world described in the Declaration of Independence doesn’t exist and never did.
So this is the End of America?
There’s a huge difference between bullshit and lies.
Yes. Bullshit is the lies Trump tells - so those lies are good. Everything bad becomes good once Trump does it.
Nope.
A liar cares about the truth. That’s why the liar wants to deflect attention from the truth and create an alternative reality.
The bullshitter does not care about the truth one way or the other. He simply wants people to pay attention to him.
OK. However “not caring about truth one way or the other” seems to be even worse.
Hear! Hear!
People ignore the Trump's machiavellianism and even though facts are as stark as sun's light. Same people, culture that approved Obama, Biden will be redeemed by vulgarian? are you kidding me? who believes this nonsense? Sure trump can do some good things like sign EOs, but our founding principles are not profound b/c of entrenched power in DC (EOs). why do people cheer for unilateral, entrenched authority like this? and why is it heroic for Trump to address insanity and unprecedented negligence of open borders? any decent GOP president would do same to stop 7M+illegals crossing border and over four years.
Let's look at some uncomfortable facts for Trump groupies. Trump has already flip flopped on h1b visas and tik tok, sided with wealthy longshoreman's union to stop port automation, nominates surgeon general who believes sex is determined at birth, nominates HHS secretary, former heroin addict, who believes vax cause autism, takes partial credit for terrible terrible deal - israeli hostage return, promotes tariffs that make products and services more expensive for americans, rejects even in principle conservatives plea to incorporate life, traditional family in gop platform, supports lgbt lifestle that weakens traditional families and opens door to trans, sues iowa pollster (can't make this up. assault on free speech), says he will end birthright citizenship and even though he does not have authority (again can't make this up) and list goes on.
almost as disgraceful as above, billionaire trump family hawks merchandise during presidencies and including now hawking trump and melania pixels (not even cypto) that they hope will bring billions more into Trump family coffers. during presidency and w/o hawking, Trump family still will make millions in trump name. Still never enough money for the Trump vultures. The Trumps are almost as narcissistic as Bidens in their lust for money and prestige.
JD better hope Trump does not have train wreck over next four years. If so , he won't win in 2028 b/c he will have to defend all of Trump's lies.
The grapes... they are sour. You don't want any of them.
True. The irony is this. Two men , Trump & Vance , who are very successful in part due to our system of gov’t , are leaders of movement, populism, that tells the poor that the system is in many ways stacked against them. Ridiculous. All people have to deal with unfairnesses in life & some are due to gov’t.
The system IS in many ways stacked against them.
The table is almost always tilted towards the big boys.
And two Big Boys who know that very well announced "We've come to be your leaders."
Yep. At the levels at which the Big Boys operate political party is meaningless.
No. Real men whine about how Biden is unfair to them and how all their problems in life are his fault. That is manly. Donald Trump said so.
There is unfairness for every human being. Some folks are born here & others in Sudan. Wealthy have more connections. Some have greater intelligence & some have more responsible & loving parents. My father’s family survived Stalin, Hitler , made it to USA with nothing & built a good life. I am not opposed to gov’t help. But better most try & commit to idea that they will persevere in midst of life’s obstacles & make a good life for themselves & family. & very important : nobody can force you to be ungrateful.
My BIL always gives me the side eye when I broach topics that has any whiff of conspiracy talk or shades of woo. He’s in good company with many evangelical Christians who still buy into modernity and the matrix we live in. I just shake my head and think, do they even believe the stories in the Bible? It’s weird that they can believe in miracles but when it’s all around them, they think it’s crazy talk.
I am sure that I would agree with virtually all of Trump's soon-to-be-announced Executive Orders but I am a very leery of government by Executive Orders. Seems to me that the Legislative branch has surrendered many of its powers and prerogatives. Trump's inaugural speech was pretty strident and even insulting to the presidential guests. But maybe the ex-presidents shouldn't have come. It's not a requirement for ex-presidents to attend inaugurations. For instance, John Adams high-tailed it to Massachusetts long before Thomas Jefferson's inauguration. Presidents Clinton, Bush, Obama and Biden needn't have attended.
Re: Seems to me that the Legislative branch has surrendered many of its powers and prerogatives.
Amen! That's what got us into the mess we find ourselves in now. They relocated the responsibility (and related power/authority) to bureaucrats so they didn't have to risk being kicked off the gravy train that politics has become.
Bingo, Elaine. Our Congress bloviates and postures but has given up on legislating. They let the unelected bureaucrats run the government.
Not just bureaucrat but also judges.
Very true. Judges shouldn't be legislating.
The role of judges is to restrain congress or the executive branch when they exceed the powers granted to them by the constitution. Its very important to preserve that. Its equally important to affirm that it is not the role of the courts to consider whether legislative acts are wise, prudent, or reasonable, if they are within constitutional parameters.
Totally agree. The Congress has given way to much power to the Executive branch and the various departments
Well, congress is unlikely to take much power back in the next two years.
"Trump's inaugural speech was pretty strident and even insulting to the presidential guests."
Considering they tried to kill him I think he was pretty restrained. I'm not trying, at least not very hard, to be funny.
I don't think Clinton, Bush or Obama would be involved with Trump's near-assassinations. But I wouldn't put it past someone in the Biden Administration.
Well, it wasn't a crazed teenager acting off his own bat, was it? Somebody on that platform tried to kill him.
If Biden tried to kill Trump he would already be dead. It was a crazed teenager that did it.
If Biden had tried to kill Trump he would probably have shot himself.
Point.
Perhaps it was a ruse...
Live in the truth, dude, and stop with the nonsensical conspiracy chatter.
Yes, sir. Any further orders?
No, it was a crazed teenager acting off his own bat.
We now almost nothing about that crazed teenager. No social media, no texts or emails. It's as if the Manchurian Candidate was born & raised in Pennsylvania, pre-programmed as it were, and then activated by, say, a certain Antony Blinken...
A teenager who was not allowed to join his high school shooting team due to being a poor shot seems like a bad pick for a Manchurian Candidate assassin.
I started reading Pasulka’s book last night. My question then and on reading this post this morning is whether the conclusion is that the UAPs are always demonic. Many of the references, including here with the star and angels in the Bethlehem sky, or the dove over Jesus’s head, are sightings we would consider angelic. Surely some of them now would be “good” as well?
Not the ones who quickly vanish when the witness/target prays or utters the name of Jesus. Do you know of any accounts in which a target did this and the mysterious object did NOT scoot away? If so, please share -- such accounts need to be studied too!
I wish I did! But I’m a literature person. The episode I had in mind is the end of That Hideous Strength, obviously fictional, when Ransom is whisked away in an oblong box shaped like a coffin to be taken back to Perelandra (Venus). Lewis got so many things right in that book—I notice more every time I read it—and he clearly thought there were two sides to this interplanetary war. He did make it clear the “bad” entities had more sway here on earth, but there were a few good ones represented, too. I’m just curious if there’s a corollary in the real world.
Biden's multitude of pardons are unseemly but a perfect exclamation point on an unseemly president, one of America's worst. Goodbye, Mr. Biden. History will not be kind to you.
Remember, though, that he did, however awkwardly and painfully, get the USA out of the Afghan quagmire. Even if the rest of his presidency is viewed as problematic or even a fiasco, he can carve his name with pride for that accomplishment, and the USA owes him a significant debt of gratitude for it.
Are you f*cking high? The exit from Afghanistan was a complete disaster in its execution. Calling it merely "awkward" is ridiculous.
It was Trump who negotiated the Afghan settlement-- and that all but guaranteed the return of the Taliban to power. Whether one wants to praise our exit or decry it, that can't be done without acknowledging Trump's role in it.
The reality is that, thanks to Biden, no more American boys are being killed or left permanently damaged in body, mind, and spirit by that nightmare and no more American treasure is being poured into that particular bottomless pit. Biden, and Biden alone, brought it to an end. That is a major accomplishment.
I'm sorry, but that's just morally retarded. As Jon correctly (gonna be one of those days, apparently) points out, Trump was working on exiting Afghanistan and was, in fact, stymied in getting it done in no small part by his staff, including the odious General Milley who received a preemptive pardon this morning.
I'm not arguing that leaving Afghanistan wasn't ultimately the correct thing to do and that the Taliban wouldn't have inevitably returned to power. Biden's slapdash exit as opposed to the staged withdrawal that Trump was reportedly negotiating resulted in the deaths of more of our service people as well as the deaths of numerous Afghani civilians. The manner in which a thing is done creates moral issues itself.
Those of us who aren't moral retards still remember the images of desperate people falling off of our planes. We remember the horror and are outraged that in the horror and fog of our hasty withdrawal, we drone struck civilians employed by NGOs, claimed that we thought it was Taliban, and then didn't hold anyone responsible.
Those of us who aren't moral retards also remember that the Biden administration left dozens, maybe even hundreds, of our Afghan collaborators abandoned to the tender mercies of the Taliban to the point that private efforts had to be undertaken to try to rescue some of them. Efforts that were slandered by regime media to the point that CNN just lost a defamation case over it last week.
Finally, although it is a minor point compared to the human tragedies I've already listed, our slapdash exit abandoned billions of dollars of equipment to the Taliban to use against their own people as well as their regional enemies. That's another moral problem caused by Biden's "awkward" exit.
You are clearly not a serious person.
You are absolutely correct. And the weapons "left behind" have enabled the Islamist Taliban terrorists to have a modern army with arms readily available for sale in a black market. IIRC Biden's administration was continuing to send significant $$ to the Taliban.
Trump finalized the negotiation, and Biden has no room left unless he chose to abrogate the agreement -- which probably wouldn't have been effectively supported by what was left of "our" Afghan government. Trump preening about the art of the deal.
Biden absolutely had the final determination as to the scheduling and manner of the withdrawal. IIRC, he scrapped Trump's timetable for an orderly withdrawal after the "fighting season" was over in favor of a mad scramble to get out ASAP that resulted in chaos, disorder, and extra needless deaths, especially of Afghans. All of this was hashed out and no one seriously disputes it.
No one here, especially me, is arguing that we should not have withdrawn from Afghanistan. It should have happened earlier, but Trump was hamstrung by his own generals until the end of his administration. This is also documented and not seriously disputed.
The manner of the withdrawal and the chaos and needless death that followed is absolutely on Biden.
Awkward and painful doesn't begin to describe the Afghan exit. And suggesting it's a point of pride and deserving of gratitude ranks down there with asking "Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, did you enjoy the play?"
Meh. Once we left it is inevitable the Taliban would take power. The idea we could ave remade Afghanistan as some sort of secular democracy was cookoo all along, so of course the whole business was not going ti end well.
You are British, correct, Colin ? Biden alons got the USA out of Afghanistan? This seems to be an example of BBC news. Trump has a plan for withdrawal. No soldier had died in 18 months. We had basically a caretaker force of 2500 there. They were being pulled out as appropriate so that the Tablban with their nightmarish torture of women, did not take back over. We left 80 billion dollars of equipment, we gave up an air force base near China, we left our assets there so that they and their families could be killed. Left even all our dogs to die. Afghanistan is now terrorist training and hiding headquarters once again. This did not have to be, the Taliban did not have to take over, but Biden just said "everyboday out, soldierrs first, then just run for the airport if you can get there." Biden is not just a criminal but a war criminal as far as I am concerned.
Not British, but much worse - Canadian - and the correct analogy would be the CBC - worse in every way than the BBC (the other 2 major Canadian networks, Global and CTV, both “private”, are no better).
I know that the Doha Agreement, by which Trump sold the Afghan government down the river, set the groundwork on which Biden operated. Perhaps if Trump had been re-elected he might have been able to pull off a peaceful withdrawal without all the chaos and bloodshed, but I’m skeptical. One does not dismount easily from a tiger. At some point the Afghan government and their forces, their credibility and authority totally deflated, would have had to deal with the Taliban alone and (pardon
Love the CBC part :) - My honest evaluation is that the 2500 soldiers could have stayed put - no American had died for 18 months. Being there benefiited our country. We did not have to withdraw all our people until we had reason to believe the Taliban would not take over upon withdrawal, and we never had such reason. - -But even if I am wrong and we had to get every soldier out, it did not have to be done in the horrible way Biden did it, which saw hundreds die unnecessarily. (And we never planned to give up Baghram under Trump.)
No, Trump did that. Biden just got to preside over the final steps.
I was giving the benefit of the doubt, but you know what? Your Trump Derangement Syndrome is flaring up today and you're just lying, mostly to yourself, about the actual circumstances and manner of the withdrawal.
He pardoned them so they would not be unjustly harassed by the Trump DOJ. But it is a stupid mistake. Let Trump lawlessly harass them. It will only hurt him and make them look like heroes.
Instead of that Biden ruined everything.
Twice Rod used the term "new religion" and I have to say that that term is not conducive to sounding the requisite alarm. It's not new and it's not a religion. It's old Satan's rebellion. All that is new is all that has ever been "new" about the New Age: which disguises he uses and which vehicles he rides in on.
Well... "new-to-us," perhaps.
Yes, and as usual, Rod gets his slap in at Protestantism. And just what does he mean that "the institutions of Christianity are not remotely ready to deal with this"?
Is he referring to the thousands of Protestant pastors and teachers who have been teaching generations of believers to be wary of accepting supposedly spiritual phenomena as being of God? That all such phenomena must "be tried" against the teaching of The Word? I have in mind the neo Pentecostal movement which was at its public zenith fifty years ago, but which has continued in a quieter, almost underground way. Rod's Orthodox "spirituality" ( and I couch it that way to knock Orthodoxy, not Rod ) is as thought free and feelings based as Pentecostalism.
But you understand very well that the Eastern Orthodox notwithstanding, The New Testament teaches that God's will for us is that we be transformed in Christ by the renewing of our minds, not the refreshing of our feelings. All true devotion, all capacity to live in wonder, moves in train with the renewing of our minds.
ALL churches are not ready, isn’t Rod clear on that?
Ready for what? I don't get Rod's apocalyptism. If Kamala Harris were being inaugurated today I would understand his dark foreboding, but right in this piece he's also rejoicing that Trump is back. OK, but he can't have it both ways.
(OK, it's possible some catastrophe will befall us (nuclear war...) and none of us will be ready for that-- nothing unique about today's churches)
What does KH have to do with the possible rise of a UFO religion?
What UFO religion? Yes, there's long been some cookoo cults making lurid claims about little green men and flying saucers. So what? We've put up with all manner of crazypants cults, including a couple that turned suicidal-- and of course Islamic jihadis, who are still a danger.
I did write ‘possible’ Jon.
Sure. He diagnoses well, but what is his prescription? I’d be inclined to think he was on to something if he were banging away obsessively about the need for Bible study.
Help me here. Is it true that some denominations deny that demonic influences exist (as Rod seems to say)? Despite what the Gospels say? If true, then any prescription has to begin with correcting that.
Show me anywhere in EO teaching where we are transformed by Christ working in our feelings and I'll give you my house and my 401K.
I'll wait.
Maybe not in theology, but certainly in practice. You can't get to wonder by seeking it. You must seek God and His righteousness ( salvation in Jesus Christ, and the kind of transformation which only dwelling upon The Word can give someone ), then all of those marvelous things will be given to you - but even then, it's a weak spirituality which expects to get all that much wonder here. God hides Himself. We see through a glass darkly. We walk by faith, not by sight.
And just how much Bible study do the Orthodox engage in? Do you have Bible reading plans, that is, the entirety of the Scriptures in a year? Are you encouraged to hide the Word in your hearts, that you might not sin against Him? Do your priests teach expositorily? Are laity encouraged to teach Sunday School classes? Do the Eastern Orthodox even have Sunday schools?
If you really wanted to recover the fullness of Christianity, I would think you would take seriously what God says about every Christian's being part of a royal priesthood.
You seem to forget that I was a Protestant for almost 35 years of my life, and a Bible college educated one at that. I know Protestantism far better than you know Orthodoxy.
Have you even read Rod's book? If so I think you very much missed the point. And if you so strongly disagree with it, why do you continue hanging around here?
I don't read Rod as specifically bagging on Protestantism. His thesis is that Nominalism (which subtly changed the way we look at the nature of things), Humanism (which shifted the emphasis from God to humanity as the measure of things) and the Renaissance / Enlightenment (prioritizing reason above all else) affected all Western Christianity after about 1400, disenchanting Western Christianity (including Catholics such as myself) as a whole in a way that leaves it the West centuries out of practice for a society that is now re-enchanting and could break either good or bad.
Per thesis, Orthodoxy missed all that being overwhelmingly in countries that were centuries behind what was happening in the West between 1400 and Peter the Great. A quirk of history and pace of development, if you please. Relative better standing in re: enchantment, if only by omission.
By "not ready" I think Rod means that seminaries and theologians of the various Christian threads haven't sufficiently considered what alien contact might mean and/or prepared their flocks. (Yes, we should test 'all the spirits', but we first have to convince society that spirits matter.)
"thought free and feelings based"
How much Orthodox (and by extension Catholic, since it's from the same root) spirituality have you actually read, whereby you can make such a judgement?
My guess is nil.
The presidential pardon power goes back centuries (it was originally a power of the monarchy). Nothing "bizarre" about it.
Re: A conservative friend points out that this was already done when Ford pardoned Nixon. Damn.
Yep. Maybe there needs to be a constitutional amendment setting some limits to the pardon power? If so, it would also behoove us to find some way to ban the use of "revenge" prosecutions when power changes hands.
Re: ...the Equal Rights Amendment was ratified, through executive fiat.
Which had no force of law-- it was just his opinion and it flew like a lead zeppelin.
Re: The Executive Order ends the practice of housing men in women’s prisons and taxpayer funded “transition” for male prisoners.
I'm pretty sure that will only be applicable to federal prisons and prisoners. If Trump imagines he can impose state level policies by EO fiat we have a very big problem just coming out the gate
Re: America is back.
Nope. America never went anywhere. Sensible people do not conflate whatever pack of fools is running things in DC with America as a nation.
It might be a good idea to end a President's pardon power on October 31st of the year before his/her term ends. That way pardons would have to be given before the November election. Regarding revenge prosecutions, I don't know how you could ban that legally. However, my guess is that the way it backfired in Trump's case will give everyone else (hopefully including Trump) a pretty compelling reason not to do it.
UAPs — this all “against the incarnation”. Demonic gnosticism.
It is too bad that our host returns to his home state of Louisiana and Louisiana greets him with some of the coldest weather in Louisiana's history. It is frigid in most of America right now, proof of Global Warming bringing us a warmer climate. Here in the mountains of West Virginia, we had six inches of snow yesterday and our low temperature tonight is expected to be close to zero. One can only hope that Rod Dreher has his fill of Cajun cooking, some of the best food in the world.
Don't you know, Derek, that if it gets warmer, that's proof of global warming, and if it gets colder, that's proof of global warming?
Back when Rod first moved back to Louisiana they had a small snowstorm and Rod posted rather happily about his kids getting to play in snow in St. Francisville, though a couple people commented to criticize him and his wife for giving the kids a day off from schooling.
One of the benefits of homeschooling is that the teacher can let the children just be children. My atheist son, at age 16, built his own igloo after a snowstorm. And he's a builder at 25. He learned to build.
Zero is nothing. Every winter there is less than zero degrees.
Zero is unusual in the Upper Southern USA. But my Canadian grandfather regaled me with stories of -40 F weather in Saskatchewan.
I was talking about 0 C.
You Americans should return to Celsius. It makes the most sense - zero is when water freezes. Or at least adopt Kelvin - then zero is absolute zero. Fahrenheit doesn’t mean anything, the zero is just random.
Celcius has never been the scale the general public used in the United States. It doesn't matter how much sense it makes or how arbitrary Farenhight is, you get your sense of what heat feels like from your community as a child.
Fahrenheit is completely arbitrary. That is why I would advise changing it. But I understand that you got used to it.
Of everything in the metric system, Celsius is by far the dumbest. Unlike the other units, it’s useless for science (where you’d want to use Kelvin, the actual SI unit), and it’s nowhere near as practical for everyday human use. Fahrenheit has 0 as really, really cold and 100 as really, really hot. That makes sense. I don’t really care what numbers are assigned to the boiling and freezing points of water; I know what ice looks like and I can tell when the pot starts boiling.
Of course its arbitrary, but we're used to it. If you say zero degrees my mental reflexes just don't get a sense of the melting point of snow. And as Andrew ways, Celsius was never in general use, so we can't return to it. Also, it was easier to fathom when it was called centigrade, but someone decided it should be Named for Someone.
Stop telling us what to do. We've done well enough without Celsius. And don't get me started about how many Poles it takes to screw a lightbulb...
We were never on Celsius. Sure, a few lefties tried to jam the metric system down our throats but we held out. The Metric System comes from the French Revolution and Napoleon. I like neither.
I don't recall either the Socialist or Communist party platforms ever campaigning for Celsius.
In Poland Napoleon is remembered very fondly. He is even mentioned in the Polish anthem.
The French Revolution on the other hand is not fondly remembered.
The Rankine scale is the Kelvin scale with Fahrenheit gradations.
Actually, the U.S. system IS legally based on the metric system. However, two points should be made.
First, conversion to the metric system has led to accidents, such as the Gimli Glider incident in Canada in 1983.
Second, metric measurements are liable to scale errors. For example, look at the nuclear medicine patients who have died when technicians have confused millirems with microrems.
We must be careful.
In the part of Louisianna where Rod is from the average January low (coldest temp in the day) is 5 C . On the other hand people in Lousianna think nothing of heat that puts people in to the hospital in Europe, and that was true long before the advent of air conditioning.
When the global temperature was a bit cooler, the coldest arctic air stayed north of the Arctic circle. With higher temperatures comes more wind in the Arctic winter, which pushed more cold air masses further south. I saw that coming several years ago when we started having cold rains all through October, where the midwest used to have glorious sunny days most of the month. Less ice cap, more evaporation over the Arctic, more rains. We're having colder springs and warmer autumns. It will take a few centuries, but the ultimate natural correction is another ice age. That has generally happened when the sea level where the Atlantic and Arctic meet rises to the point that the waters of both oceans mix, the cold springs extend into the summer, and over a hundred years of snowfall that doesn't entirely melt, glaciers build up rapidly. This was all studied and published decades before Global Warming became a political football.