That’s the problem. They don’t see beyond the nose on their face. That’s a legacy of the boomers, each succeeding generation took it and ran a little farther with it. Haley legitimized the statue removal when she browbeat her legislature into taking the state flag down against the wishes of her constituents. Anyone with a brain could see what was coming next.
I have no problem with statue (and flag) removals if it is done by legitimate means with popular input. We should not be constrained to accept put ancestors' decoration on public spaces any more than we should accept how the previous owner decorate a house we have inherited. (Though as I have said before, I liked Rod's one time suggestion of pairing Confederate statuary with statues of civil rights heroes)
Your thoughts here reflect a principle you like to quote: “Nothing in excess.” When I started studying the Classics many years ago I was perplexed that so ostensibly banal a maxim should be inscribed (in Greek, of course) over the entrance to the temple of Apollo in Delphi - for the Greeks the holiest shrine in what they regarded as the centre (“omphalos” = navel) of the world. I have since learned that that principle is a prerequisite for sustained human flourishing - and that only the gods can attain it. We human beings usually fall well short. So the maxim was indeed well placed!
Can you define "good faith" in this context. I don't think people were lying when they claimed they found the statues obnoxious. You can make the case that they should have been thicker-skinned about such things, but I don't think there's case to be made that they were insincere.
I think the point is that they weren't really worried about a limited and egregious issue, they were just making their next move in their ongoing iconoclastic revolution. So it's a type of false pretense about their actual motive. People have now thus learned that you do *not* give this mouse a cookie.
By this statement I now see how the town leaders in times past tore down all the beautiful courthouses and replaced them with brutalist monstrosities that now blight what otherwise should be a charming space.
But you are not a conservative, Jon. Governor Haley and Senators Graham and Scott are presumably conservatives. I will not vote for any Republican who supports statue toppling. Naturally, I will never vote for a Democrat.
I would not support "statue toppling" either- that's just lawless vandalism. But if the people vote on lawful removals? How is that not to be allowed? If you inherited a property from ancestors, would you hold yourself bound to maintain their landscaping and decoration as they left it?
Good argument, Jon. Conservatives have surrendered the cities in which most of these statues were raised. They should have privatized them long ago when it became evident that those who honored Lee and Jackson and Washington and Jefferson no longer wished to live in the modern incarnations of their cities. The people who have taken over these cities hate the people who raised the statues and their descendants. For instance, Mitch Landrieu and his voters despise historic New Orleans, people like me, and most whites. So be it. But don't expect people like me to take this sort of hatred- and that's what it is- with a grin our faces. I know who the enemy is and they are your friends on the left, black and white.
There many oerfectly good reasons people moved out of cities, and other people left rural areas. I would never want to come across as looking downy nose at people who moved for *reasons*. That said, IMO, the tendency of people to pull apart like that furthers our political and cultural dysfunction. If we were living more mixed together I think we'd at least tolerate one another better, and be less fearful, and prejudiced- and I mean everyone.
It goes along with the atheist philosopher John Gray's insight that it is inconsistent to reject Christianity but then continue to cling to the liberal-humanist values that are its bequest. We would seem to be running on credit for now—credit that is quickly running out. Without some appeal to the heavenly realms, there is no particular reason to believe that all humans have dignity or that vengeance is bad or that it is wrong to idolize power. Indeed, there is no reason to believe in the intrinsic value of anything at all, including human life.
I think the only book that I've read by him is *Seven Types of Atheism*, which was good. If I recall, he talks about Lucretius and Spinoza in there, to give you an idea (along with the more usual suspects).
Also, something I was thinking about: do you think it would be coherent to speak of a Christian materialism?—basically, describing spirit as a type of subtle matter instead of matter as a type of crystallized spirit. The virtue I see in that language is its resistance to the spectral abstraction of spirit from flesh.
It just came to my mind again now because materialism is usually associated with atheism, although I think it depends entirely on what is meant by "matter". Phillip Pullman came up with "Dust", for example, which is spirit understood as an elementary particle; and Lucretius' view of matter is almost mystic.
This reminds me of one of Nietzsche's critiques of antisemitism. I paraphrase here: "Its perplexing for a Christian to be an antisemite for when he goes to Rome he worships three Jews."
Three Jews? . . . Does he mean the Trinity? Or Jesus and Peter and Paul?
I was looking at his work *The Antichrist* again the other day, and oh man, he is more insane than I remembered. But nevertheless, he does have some valuable insights from time to time. I mainly appreciate his attacks on a faux-religion that isn't the Gospel but that he imagines to be Christianity. His concept of ressentiment, for example, describes the woke pathology to a T.
Hi, Tee. I just want to let you know I signed your name in our Book of Intentions yesterday. We pray for those who are written in the book every mass, and I personally take that to include everyone whose ever been written in it. Anyhow, I just want to let you know you're being prayed for and I wish the best of the Lord's will be done for you.
Exactly. The left is feeding and raising up a doctrinaire racist movement to match its own lame doctrinaire racism. Which was of course predictable. And in my reading, our managerial elite has for some time wanted just this outcome. Because they control the institutions. Once these angry "race realists" move to action, our elite will finally get confirmation of what they've been claiming all along: that the US is a white supremacist nation. Never mind that they themselves have minted these new racists with their nonstop provocation.
It's going to be ugly. Our elites think they can make hay from the conflict they've stoked. They assume they'll just further entrench their power. And they might. But they might be surprised at the bear they've poked.
I've hated watching it take shape. The longer I've watched, the more convinced I am there's method behind it. The provocation is just too constant, too calculated, on multiple fronts at once. It's classic divide and conquer.
I find it amazing they think they can control the revolution. Look at how well that thinking turned out historically. The revolution always turns in ways you simply can’t predict.
They are utopians, and are convinced that whatever rises from the ashes of what they destroy will necessarily be more just and equitable than what we have now. They've never considered otherwise.
It seems to me that the power to get people fired and lock them out of entire professions is something more than cultural power. And anyway, if politics is downstream from culture, then cultural power itself isn't trivial or a thing that can be readily ignored.
This right here. Not only cannot be ignored, but should not ignore. We should call it out and condemn it. Not whistle and pretend it is not there. Because it absolutely is.
Not only people getting fired and their lives ruined, not only locked out of jobs, but wokeness is seeing kids mutilated and their capacity to begin a family destroyed for this Satanic world view. It is seeing chaos at the border and instability overseas.
There is nothing good about it. And it is not just harmless fluff. It is just as damaging as any poisonous ideology that takes hold of people.
No, you're not. Not if you fly on airplanes, go to the ER, enroll your child in a public school, or try to get the facts of any news story (the commenters of these boxes are not typical news consumer, they're expert, but not everybody can be an expert). Wake up.
Fly in an airplane? Go to the ER? Huh? I've done both not all that long ago, and I recall absolutely nothing "woke" about it (which isn't to say there weren't hella-annoying aspects to both)
Having yet another one of those "we leave in different realities" moments.
(As for news stories the facts are there-- what you have to do however is sift them from the slant and the spin-- which can be worse than a carnival tilt-a-whirl)
Jon, I feel like you live in the 90s. Pre Google, Facebook and Twitter (and their control of information and everything internet) and pre the Patriot Act with its mass surveillance.
I miss the 90s terribly and wish I could join you there :)
A somewhat whimsical comment, but I appreciate it.
Actually I have Facebook open on another tab right now. But I keep my Facebook very G-rated and non-controversial. My posts this week consisted on a check-in at the beach on Treasure Island while awaiting my car repairs, an approving notice of the weather finally behaving like Florida (not a thirty degree warmer Michigan), and my cat perking up when she heard a dog bark.
You could not drag me into the sewer of the Id formally called Twitter if you waved a winning lotto ticket in front of my nose.
"If, God forbid, some terrorist attack happens because of Biden’s indifference towards border security, remember this." Rod, over on this side of the pond we'll be rather busy, probably too busy to remember. Too busy getting our guns confiscated, our passports canceled, our locations and movements tracked, our cash transactions outlawed, and God knows what else. Because executive action constituting a de facto Patriot Act Chapter Two will make the original look like pure libertarianism. And don't you think for One. Hot. Damn. Minute. that there aren't heads on the federal payroll thinking about how best to do it.
And where is that Thomas Jefferson statue going? Is it going to be placed in a box and put in a warehouse like in the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark....”we have top notch people looking at it...top notch”
Rod, while the dating scene for us "single seniors" (sorry!) is fraught with weirdness (LOTS of weirdness!), I think you'll be pleasantly surprised to find that there are actually decent and normal women out there who will appreciate a man who is unapologetically cis-hetero and religious. They're out there! The first thing out of my wife's mouth when we met in 2018 was "Do you believe in God?" I replied "Duh, who doesn't?" and we were off to the races!
A relative of mine married a much younger Filipina. I’ve visited several times (not for women!), and love the country. I know there’s the reputation about old men and young SE Asian women, but Rod could also find an educated woman closer to his age, if he prefers.
I was on a "motorcycle" tour of the Mekong Delta in the early 2000s. (The "motorcycle" was actually a 110cc scooter.) I met an English geezer who was clearly there for the Vietnamese women, although he told me that the most beautiful girls were to be found in Thailand. Sadly, sex tourism is a thing.
Yes, to be sure. In the Philippines, it seems to be mainly for young and feminine wives, though, although there’s no doubt actual sex tourism too. I was travelling for a couple of days with a relative, 18 and very pretty, me in my 50s, and everyone was asking if she was my wife!
I enjoy the island-hopping and the nature. Some great churches to look at too - earthquake baroque - and folk art everywhere.
One of the interesting things for me here is that we could take this piece, swap out any references to "Texas" or "America" and it could just as well describe the same issue as it's playing out throughout the West, from Hungary to Italy to Germany, France, Canada and Britain etc.
The West now seems to be ruled by a globalist elite class who all have the same beliefs, went to similar schools, consume similar culture, and work in areas like media, tech, culture, NGOs, finance etc, and who uniformly believe that the nation-state is an oppressive, vaguely gauche and bigoted antique that needs to be replaced—replaced, of course, by a technocracy overseen by their own class, who have all the proper beliefs and morals.
Their current strategy in re immigration seems to be 1) that more is never enough and that both Justice and the GDP demand an almost unlimited flow of migrants, along w 2) never actually campaigning on this or admitting it in public, while 3) having every one of their media and cultural organs and creators (they own almost all of them) work as an ideological mafia/priesthood, denouncing all opponents and dissenters as evil Nazi Bigots while dictating the dogma of what all Good People need to believe.
Globalist/Nationalist has replaced Left/Right as the major fault line in politics, and the strategy the Globalist class is pursuing—flooding the West with migrants while trying to smother the protests of traditional citizens—is bound to create a major social earthquake before the end of this decade.
it seems so odd to me that just about every Western center-left party could lock in electoral dominance if it simply came out against illegal immigration and prioritized the needs of its own citizens instead of foreigners and global capital flows—and yet none of them can even contemplate taking this step.
I think the Left worked out about 30 years ago that the plebs wouldn’t provide enough votes to keep them in power, so they would import a new plebs and get rid of the old one. Quite logical especially as the Right (or at least the business classes) could be persuaded by the advantages of cheap labour.
I have a different perspective from the Lefties I know (who admittedly aren't political bigshots), but for them if any issue or event can be interpreted as helping the poor, brown and oppressed, this mentally and morally unravels them (in my head I see both an alarm being defused and Alex from "Clockwork Orange" no longer able to stomach violence) and they are simply unable to object or even allow their brains to process why anyone else would.
White guilt/saviorism is the Western Achilles' Heel and I think this is the root of the incontinent xenophilia and pathological self-loathing that has been running rampant and redoing all our prior arrangements in the name of "Justice".
I still cannot fathom the idea that you should tear down the social, cultural and economic fabric around you without any plan for future improvement. Is this a form of nihilism, a rage against our parents or against God? Is it Marxist ‘social alchemy’ where it is assumed a just moral order will emerge from the ruins? Or have they heard ‘Imagine’ played so often it replaces the part of the brain that is used for intelligent thought?
That's why the right needs to have a better/stronger pro-family policy, and an overt embrace of moral traditionalism isn't a bad thing, as lefties will tell you - because a huge percentage of these new arrivals still hew to the traditional family belief/model, and if there's one thing that would get the left to turn off the immigrant spigot it's any indication that these new importees might vote (R) at some point
I think it’s a bold assumption that they care at all what the native population thinks. Like I stated in another post, these ‘traditionalists’ don’t seem to mind scoffing our laws when it suits.
They could not, because women would simply bound even *further* Left.
Modern women are utterly and entirely captured by the notion that The Oppressed must be aided and supported at all costs, in all situations, no matter how catastrophically misguided the method, and no matter the actual consequences.
To them, anything less than this deranged fanaticism is equivalent to Nazism.
Just saw this on X as a response to the sex/gender stuff:
<<Santiago Pliego
@SantsPliego
I don't have time to write a longer thread, so the simplest way I can put it:
Young men are fed up with the bullshit of liberal modernity.
They know it's fake. The psyop is over. They are ready for reality. Yeah, a cohort of young men use this to turn to dark places—inceldom, blah blah blah.
But generally, young guys (gen Z esp) have grown up in a world where older generations ignore their eyes and ears and pretend obvious things about the world are not true.
They are done.>>
If that's the case, then all respect to the Live Not By Lies generation.
My 20-something Christian Conservative daughter would sure like to find a like-minded man. Man....not a boy. It's tough out there when you aren't woke.
My 37 yr old Christian Conservative son is in the same situation with finding a woman that's not woke and/or a "progressive" Christian. I think he would only be moderately unhappy with me "outing" him, since he's actively looking and recently started using online dating, including Christian Mingles.
He's in the Minneapolis, MN metro area which generally has a liberal progressive population. Since I've shared this much, I'll add he has an excellent career and income, owns his home, good looking, never married and great physical shape :-)
This is much appreciated because I am actively trying to matchmake, and he sounds like a super guy. Unfortunately I've been told the age gap is a bit too wide. My very best wishes to him, and may God bless his endeavor to find a Godly wife. I will keep my ears open.....just in case.
During Covid, if I wanted to order a cappuccino at Cafe Trieste, the famous North Beach cafe where the likes of Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Jack Kerouac hung out during the Beat era, I had to show the staff proof of vaccination. I refused. But during the same period thousands of people crossed the border, unvaccinated, unvetted, and disappeared into the deepest recesses of the nation. Just another example that the pandemic was less about health than control of its erstwhile citizens.
There was a flu epidemic in 1958, which killed one to two million people around the world. President Eisenhower caught it but obviously survived. Can you imagine if any of the Beats were told to wear masks or provide proof of vaccination at Cafe Trieste? My gosh, they would've trashed the place.
Do you want more marriages? There are mentions of obstacles you see with women, but not with men. Here's my Rx: Men, ditch the porn and your wanking habit entirely.--that's right, entirely. Assuming you also bathe every day, are not unemployed, and regularly leave the basement computer behind, many women will be attracted to you. Men, if you really want to marry, do try this. Heaven is very willing to be a matchmaker for men like this, who are as rare as hen's teeth. God will be very interested in seeing you happily married if you are a man with clean hands and a clean mind.
Also, be actually ready to TALK on a date about something other than video games, and don't just gobble your food and ask if she wants to go back to your place.
Sadly, it does. My husband and I were taking a group of college students to an art museum once, and one of the male students was seated next to a female student and talked to her for a solid hour about when and how Superman's cape changed in the comics. When we stopped for a restroom break, she made sure when she got back in to sit in another location.
Women aren’t great shakes either. When I was single some of my friends were just brutal to guys who would try to approach them. This was 25 + years ago. I would go on a lot of dates and if it didn’t work out I would thank them politely for the date but say I didn’t feel there was sufficient chemistry to continue. We always left as friends. I don’t know if women do this today.
No idea. When I dated, I'd do the same thing - when it didn't work out I'd thank them and say I didn't see a future together, but we could still be friends. Most guys agreed or were friendly about it, but a couple were not: "Well, why'd you go out with me if you were interested?" To which the honest answer would have been "I didn't know I wasn't interested until I saw you be rude to the waitress." (Or other things.)
" There are mentions of obstacles you see with women, but not with men. "
Perhaps here, sure. There's no shortage of crticism of men around. So much so that "Where have all the good men gone?" is an entire genre in the popular culture.
" Assuming you also bathe every day, are not unemployed, and regularly leave the basement computer behind, many women will be attracted to you"
Is this in response to the second point? That's still not true, even as amended, but does start to point out why: very salient criteria are missing from your list.
You are missing the important point that this is a two-sided coin. Women are also consumers of porn, including "romance novels" (who do they think they are kidding?).
The porn companies release their data every year. One of the largest such sites found that women average more time per visit than men and search for more hardcore content than men. Another site found that women spend more on the site's paid content than the men do.
But you keep on with your out-of-touch canard that if men would just do A, then everything would be fine. The system is broke and it isn't getting fixed if people don't realize that it isn't just one part that stopped working.
I believe that things will overall work out for a man who seeks first the Kingdom of God, and that any of my own problems are largely the result of too often getting distracted from that project. So, I like the ground you're holding here; and I think that a man should stop wasting time on blaming anyone or anything else, least of all women. Much isn't within our power, true—but a lot still is. And resentment is always a cancer.
This sounds like the absurd prosperity gospel applied to dating. Men, if just do this one thing everything will be ok. Yeah, right. God makes no such promises.
Thankfully, I am no longer a single young man. I feel for them. Society views them in the worst possible light.
Heaven is interested in sending children to homes where fathers are not pornsick. In fact, Heaven is extremely interested in that. Make yourself of interest to Heaven.
I have been out of the dating market for a while but I did find it hard to meet a wife and I literally did all that. Granted the women I did meet were not that bad either. We were all pretty normal. Eventually I did meet my wife. I do think this whole thing is over blown.
Rod, who in God's name are you talking to? There are a zillion essays out there on evangelical and Catholic sites by amazing 20-, 30- and 40- something women who say the men are not out there. Are your male friends in church? If they are not, tell them to get their butts in there, because that is one place where decent women are. Don't like religion? Volunteer for something that involves care of animals. Women are all over pet rescue organizations. Finding marriageable women these days is like shooting fish in a barrel. If you're coming up short, you are not looking.
I assume he's getting a lot of his information from Twitter/X, where I had to start muting people and terms because the constant battle between the sexes is getting tiring. (To be honest, much of the site is turning into Gab and becoming annoying in general.)
I think you may be right. I don't want to say that women are 100% the "good guys" in this crisis, because there's a lot of blame to go around, but often the complaints I see from women have some merit to them, even when the proposed solutions don't seem wise. The complaints I see from men, on the other hand, tend to the self-centered: "Women are bad because they don't like me!" when they haven't done much to be likeable at all. The worst (but not at all uncommon) get into, "they'll have sex with other random guys, so they should be willing to have sex with me," something I have absolutely no sympathy for at all.
Try to be a good man. Don't sit on your arse playing video games and whining on the internet. Find a career that interests you and work at becoming fantastic at it. Do volunteer work. Go to church. Be involved in your community and become a benefit to it and your society as a whole. Find fulfillment in doing these things; it isn't all about finding a woman, and finding a woman may ironically be easier if it becomes secondary to your goal of becoming a blessing to the society you live in.
One of my very, very good friends from college was amazing back then, but really geeky and awkward in some ways. He wasn't a looker, and I don't think that many girls looked twice at him. After college, he got a job, saved his money, bought a townhome, etc., but he also started doing things to broaden his interests - he started running marathons, he did rock climbing, he joined ballroom dancing... By the time he did meet his wife, he had a lot more to offer than, "I'm a computer programmer who likes playing video games in my spare time."
I liked him a lot when we were in college, but I was a disaster then (not that I'm not now, ha ha) and he had some maturing to do as well, and it's probably for the best that we never dated. He's one of the few people from college I haven't lost track of, and I know he struggled for years kind of thinking the marriage thing wasn't going to happen. But instead of getting bitter and complaining and closing himself off, he found ways to get out and live. Eventually, he met the woman he would marry over a dating program (with the geekiest line you can ever imagine) and she's amazing herself, but being there for his wedding in 2016, I couldn't help but be a little in awe of the man that he'd become.
Oh please. Those "zillion essays" are social media validation exercises. I know because I dated one of those essay writers (a Catholic blogger) for a year until she decided that she wasn't really interested in a relationship or marriage because...wait for it...she enjoyed her freedom too much. (And by freedom, I mean being promiscuous; although, I heard she is trying women now) I'm a traditional Catholic man and I know others like me and we don't see these Catholic women at mass on Sunday--they are often at brunch with their friends wondering where the men are, I guess.
I've been on a Catholic dating site and met many women---most were wonderful women with great faith; however, so many were not really interested in a relationship. They liked the idea of being in one, but they never wanted to give anything up. The man would only be an entry in her weekly calendar...who wants that?
Also, woman who ask "where are the good Catholic/Evangelical men" are being disingenuous with that question. They have every bit a long list of "must haves" for a man as their secular sisters, they just want it with a veneer of religion. I feel especially bad for the blue collar guys out there. Catholic women will blather on about finding a "St. Joseph", but very few would deign to date a carpenter. There is plenty of blame to go around, but it is lazy to imply that it is a merely a matter of "where are the men?"
Yes, very true. The Catholic dating site I was on had a forum where people could interact. There would occasionally be posts from women about how "nobody" wrote them. Well, once a woman that I had written wrote a post about how "nobody' was sending her messages. So, feeling snarky, I replied to the thread about how I had written her, but I guess I am nobody. I ended up getting several private messages from men who had written women that later posted about "nobody" writing them.
But you know, it's hard to force things. When I was single and newly Catholic in the early to mid 1990s, in Washington, I met single women who shared my faith, and who were conservative, but ... no chemistry. I tended to be attracted to women who were smart, funny, worldly ... but who had no faith. It was only when I met the woman who would become my wife that I found someone who combined my two worlds. That worked well, for a while.
Yep, thinking about it or trying to force it just leads to frustration. It's one of those things that just happens (and really can only happen) when you're not looking.
I remember back then being totally bowled over by a Jewish woman who worked in my newsroom. She was soooo sexy, and funny, and verbally sharp -- all things I associate with Jewish culture. I was completely smitten. But she had no faith, Jewish or otherwise, so I wouldn't allow myself to pursue her, though she indicated interest. Love is strange... .
I'm a conservative Protestant who agrees with Brendan from my side. I'm sorry, Julia, but your comment seems as though it has been lost in cyberspace since 1994.
Lost in cyberspace? Cute. Why don't you come to my PCA church where there's bunches of single women but NO single men? But ... OK. Sit there and feel sorry for yourself and complain about single women for the rest of your life. Or get someone to introduce you to some decent women and then LISTEN to them instead of talking about yourself the entire date and maybe you'll get somewhere.
Yes, I have, sadly. And the PCA doctrine of not allowing women to have any voice in a typical service is a tad daunting for many females. If your church is in the PCA-rich southern states, tell your single guys to move out to mission territory here in the Pacific NW where women abound.
One thing I would say on behalf of the boors: men are psychologically wired to want a helpmeet. Because of The Fall, this, like everything else, has tended to go very wrong. Most men just don't have my panache, Julia.
Seriously: men do have this hope in them, the ones who aren't psychopaths, anyway. One problem is that men have a much harder time than women in developing social skills. Add the greater incidents of both ADD and ASD in men ( something like 3 to 1 in the former ), and all of this, or at least the first two, contribute more to the problem of male jerkiness than women realize.
Here is another, huge factor: years ago, I heard an interview with a woman who was a clinical psychologist. She had had an idea about something, and decided to test it on her female patients who were consulting her about their romantic frustrations, so over a several month period, she asked each a simple question.
"Do you realize how hard it is for a man to ask a woman out? That the vast majority of men are terrified of being rejected?"
She said that without exception, each woman was astonished to hear this.
"What? REALLY?"
"Are you serious, Doctor?"
"My Lord! Is this true? I've never heard this before!"
Etc., etc., etc.
So, Julia, taking all of this into consideration, plus fifty years of celebration of women to the corresponding slighting of men, and it becomes a little easier, I hope, to be sympathetic to men who lack the social graces.
Yes, Bobby, although my two brothers, of very different temperments, never had that problem. Women are terrified of being rejected too - and we're graded a lot more on our looks than you guys are - so you're not going to get sympathy from us on this one. Because when I see a guy who's afraid to come talk to me during church coffee hour, much less ask me out, I wonder what's this guy going to do if some one tries to break into our home? What if some hoodlum threatened us on a date? If he's afraid of *me,* what else is he afraid of? Men want a helpmeet. Women want protection. If she's not confident he's up to that, she'll look for someone who is.
Someone several comments up said that women look down on blue collar guys; that's changing. Women want guys who can fix things, who know their way around a gym and could defend them if push came to shove. It's not our job to build confidence in you. That's groundwork that should have happened in high school and college years.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that you've never been on a date with Bobby Lime or the "bunches of single women" at your church so you don't know how either act on a date, yet you assume Bobby doesn't listen and sits around complaining whereas the women...I guess just sit there looking pretty and confused as to why those darn men don't just step up to the plate.
Your views are, in the long run, most detrimental to the single women because you don't seem to be able to fathom how they could possibly have any agency in their situation or your role in perpetuating that belief.
I think it's easier to convince a woman to change churches to be with a man who is assured in his faith. That being said, as a woman who came to Orthodoxy in her early 20s, there wasn't much of a "dating pool" to speak of.
In my experience, Lutheranism was a similar desert experience as far as dating was concerned A Lutheran single group I briefly joined attracted an in-group of eccentrics and loners which kept more dateable people from joining. One women from the group just gave up and started dating a Unitarian. Much of it was about group dynamics and unfortunately the forever bachelor founder drew like members to this group and wouldn't give up the reins of leadership or allow for much change.
Hungary is not a very religious country, alas, but at MCC (Matthias Corvinus Collegium) here in Budapest, I'm told there are lots of smart, ambitious, religiously serious young women -- usually Reformed -- who are marriage minded. I'm told that one problem here is that educationally accomplished young women are seen as intimidating by men in their generational cohort, who back off and sulk. Ergo, these women are more interested in dating Western men, who are both ambitious and can tolerate women of accomplishment.
I have no actual idea how true that is, as I don't speak the language, and that's not my generation (and hey, I'm all about age-appropriate courtship). But that's what I hear.
Some years back Meagan MacArdle wrote a piece from a woman's point of view which basically said, "Ladies, stop looking for Mr. Perfect and maybe settle for Mr. Good Enough. That should be advice to everyone. I get that wildly different POVs on religion and politics can be a deal breaker, but do all t's have to be crossed, all i's dotted and commas and semicolons inserted in the same places?
I agree totally, Jon. What growth is there in marriage/love together if you both start in the same place? My wife's Southern Baptist and I'm Catholic. We respect and learn from each other constantly. Of course, it helps we were married in our 40s and had no plans for children.
It’s difficult to determine what’s really going on because I am neither young or dating. Problems were many for me when I was single the second time round from 95-00. From what I see online and listening to others with marriageable children those problems have only gotten worse.
the executive branch of the federal government is refusing to enforce the laws of this country.
Sure, and that may be bad. But it's not unprecedented. Executive branches constantly have to make decisions about what and how much to enforce. Everybody knows about laws that don't really get enforced. Again, this particular case may be a bad thing, but it's hardly a prima facie constitutional crisis.
"...it's hardly a prima facie constitutional crisis"
I would agree. There is definitely a clash of governmental power here, but there has been no challenge of Federal legal supremacy, and so there is no crisis. Heck, back when segregationist governors tried to challenge Federal supremacy with their flawed interposition legal doctrine it didn't rise to crisis level.
Subjectively, though, I think a lot of us wanna see this showdown happen and feel like it's been a long time coming. I live two miles from the Capitol here in Austin, and this is reminding me why Texas is awesome.
A precise demonstration as to why moderation is important. Had that alt history happened we would have been much worse off as a nation, for no good reason at all.
I attended public schools in the early 70s when liberal pedagogues decided that busing was in order. My already racially diverse elementary school was torn asunder, with kids bused across the City to achieve some sort of faux ethnic balance. San Francisco public schools were never the same after that.
My granddaughter is in the most racially diverse school in town, and the newest. The state wants it broken up for "balance," with the result that children of color will be sent to physically inferior schools and replaced with white kids (Black state bureaucrats enabling white privilege - amazing!). Besides the parents' objections the big obstacle is a serious shortage of bus drivers: it might not happen for that alone.
"Top U.S. Senate negotiators said Thursday that final details on an immigration policy deal remain under debate in the U.S. Senate, despite outside pressure from GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump to sink any agreement as he makes immigration his central campaign message... Like in his first presidential campaign, Trump has made immigration a main theme, often referring to migrants claiming asylum at the Southern border as an “invasion.” On his social media site, Truth Social, he has urged congressional Republicans to not accept a deal.
During a closed-door meeting on Wednesday night, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky acknowledged the difficulty of passing an immigration bill and the potential it would undermine Trump, the top Republican negotiator of the deal, Oklahoma Sen. James Lankford, told reporters at the Capitol."
I have no confidence that any deal with Biden would be worth the paper it's written on. Count on the GOP to live up to their name, "The Stupid party". I would normally applaud negotiators being able to agree, but these ain't normal times, and the Republicans have a bad habit of caving.
The GOP has no interest, and has never had an interest, in passing a decent immigration bill because cheap migrant labor is a mainstay of too many industries (dairy farms, slaughterhouses, meatpacking plants, agriculture - especially at harvesttime, service industries, construction, etc.) and the border is always one of those great ways to gin up the base whenever an election comes up. To be fair, it's the same on the Democrats' side. But until you find enough white people to do the hard nasty work of this (and every) country... migrants willing to work for $3.00 an hour are coming in. And, to be fair, Saudi Arabia and most of the wealthy Middle East does the same thing.
Well, I can remember when we had one in effect: it was called the McCarren-Walter Act. And I think Pat McCarren and Francis Walter were both Democrats.
Ah, but that act - The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 - was all about the Cold War and, if you look at the quotas list, you'll notice there were no quotas for Mexico, nor any prohibitions against seasonal working migrants. America needed migrants from Mexico to pick the fruits, nuts, and vegetables, and they're not prohibited in the Act.
There's more to it than that. What they come up with will be a complete fig leaf for the Ukraine money that will fix nothing. NBC Network radio news reported at 11 a.m. EST today that Biden he would back what the Senate comes up with, which means it's going to be a greeting card en espanol. Abbott has also flatfooted that.
This is Biden's move (as I mentioned above): Ignore the actual border while painting Trump as the bad guy with an assist from McConnell and his lackeys.
It's Republicans who are saying that Trump is pressuring them. What's "psyop" about that? Oh, I know - they're RINOs. If everyone who criticizes Trump is a RINO, then there are no RINOs, just Republicans, and Trump really is going to lose in a landslide.
Eve, all Republicans except for the corporate interests and what's left of the Kempites want America's borders to be defended and tens of millions of illegals to be sent back home. The Republican establishment forces your average Republican into the arms of Trump. They are so stupid. McConnell. Lankford. Thune. So many others.
What you have to face is that so far McConnell, et al, are smart enough to stay in power, and when push comes to shove, Republicans vote them in by huge majorities. John Thune's approval ratings in ruby-red South Dakota are through the roof. Same with McConnell's in Kentucky. There's more than just corporate interests and Kempites that keep these guys in power.
True. The agony of illegal immigration is less acute in South Dakota, probably limited to meatpacking plants. That is the same in West Virginia and Kentucky and probably twenty-five other states. In the Washington DC metropolitan area, you've had many suburban towns become majority-Hispanic in only a decade or two and the former inhabitants disinherited. What I see in McConnell and Thune and Lankford are men who not only appease the corporate interests of their states, they are unable to understand why their own voters are repelled at becoming a minority in their own country.
I know some small towns up here that have become half Hispanic, because of the meat-packing plants. And probably working some other places, like some dairies... it's hard to tell. Let's just say the employers don't publicize who they're hiring.
It's not as bad as some places, but it's surprised some of our recent new arrivals who came to South Dakota looking for freedom and majority...
Attorney General Merrick Garland is a mean and vindictive man. If Governor Greg Abbott of Texas defies the federal government, he will likely send US Marshals to Austin and have him arrested.
He can make all the noise in DC he wants. Abott will also film the encounter and have Garland and his goons up on charges. That's what happens when all pretense of your authority melts away.
The Feds are not kings and states are not subordinate to the Federal government.
Abbot is already defying them. Biden laid down a deadline for Abbot to get out of the way of the Feds and Eagle Pass. Abbott gave them the two middle finger salute.
Can't you just imagine - pre dawn raid of the Governor's mansion in TX, Abbot being manhandled out of there... Every Republican ad for the rest of the election cycle would have footage of it!
Really doubt Abbot is not prepared for that. Not only with cameras set to go and independent news guys like Alex Jones and Steven Crowder on standby, but it will be on camera and Abbot will be in his wheelchair.
And lawyers. Lots of lawers, including AG Ken Paxton.
There is no way Biden looks good in this, in an election year. Either impotently stew in DC, or haul a paraplegic out in the full view of the world, using guns to hold the border open to an illegal alien horde.
I think Col. the Rev. Samuel Johnson Clayton should deputize the wedding party, Ethan and Martin Pauley and head for the border. Because Cicatriz is Mexican for Scar.
There is no reason why this has to degenerate into such a conflict. If the Texas people can grant the barest nod to Federal supremacy and go about their business all will be as well as can be until the Federal policy is changed. Don't get in the Feds' faces, be polite, fix the fence after they leave, don't give up, don't give in to negativity that can be exploited by the media.
BTW, I looked over the Max Remington article. It gives compelling arguments why Biden can't nationalize the Texas National Guard without making himself look worse. Perhaps we should be hoping for nationalization.
You wait. On The View they'll start talking about the insurance payments for his injury and isn't he on strong painkillers and don't they affect the judgment?
Thus far, I have been shielded from the full experience, having seen only small clips elsewhere, in venues where they've been made fun of. Is the redhead Joy Behar? What a nightmare!
I think the possibility of me getting remarried is basically zero. I don't know that I'd ever want to. Not that it couldn't be a nice thing, but I don't think that once it's "practical", there's any way I'd want to be that vulnerable again. Not saying men are pigs or anything, generally, I think I probably get along with men better than women, and probably 2/3 of the friends I just felt like I could talk to in my life are male, but I just feel like the dating/marriage part is done.
I think men have a rough deal of it; I think women have a rough deal with it. We're conditioned to think that stable is boring, and that a good marriage has to have the movie-type romance to make it work. My friends grandparents were amazing together, but I doubt there was any "romance"; the grandfather's first wife had died, leaving him with a two-year-old little girl, and in the USSR of 1950, the "solution" to that was either remarrying or leaving the kid in an orphanage. So he quickly remarried. His second wife certainly wasn't perfect (I found her difficult to get along with in her old age), but the stories from my friend about how they really were a shining example of mutual love and sacrifice always made me admire both of them.
I'm glad a lot of young men are finding Orthodoxy. However, I think most of them are going to need a few years of it before they've mellowed out enough to get along with sane women. But what do I know?
I think that this is one of the main lessons of Tolstoy's novel *Anna Karenina*: that boring is typically good; that high drama is most often a sign that things have gone horribly wrong; and that what a lot of people think of as romance might be a type of ideology that isn't all that compatible with sanity or actual communion. You may enjoy this essay (and pretty much every other essay—he's great) by Gary Saul Morson:
Hm, maybe I'm taking my mellowing-out time in my Eastern Catholic parish, so that I'll be pretty good to go if (probably when) I jump to Orthodoxy? Haha.
Once upon a time, I had hoped to read some of these in the original Russian. About that... I suppose never rule anything out, but I'm not going to be at that level anytime in the near future. :/
"As for Tolstoy I disagree with you altogether. Tolstoy is a magnificent writer. He is never dull, never stupid, never tired, never pedantic, never theatrical! He is head and shoulders over the others. I don’t take him very seriously as a Christian saint. I think he has a very genuine spiritual nature but I suspect that he speaks the very best Russian with a St Petersburg accent and remembers the Christian name of his great-great-father […]
"A writer in the Illustrated London News sneers at Tolstoy for not understanding WAR. ‘Poor dear man!’ he says. Now, damn it, I’m rather good-tempered but this is a little bit too much. Did you ever hear such impudence? Do they think the author of Resurrection and Anna Karénin is a fool? Does this impudent, dishonourable journalist think he is the equal of Tolstoy, physically, intellectually, artistically or morally? The thing is absurd. But when you think of it, it’s cursedly annoying also. Perhaps that journalist will undertake to revise Tolstoy more fully – novels, stories, plays and all."
James Joyce 1905 (he was 23)
In another place he writes that the press would call Tolstoy vulgar, except they know he's a prince. Much much later he said that the three writers of fiction he liked best were Tolstoy, Kipling, and D'Annunzio, paused and said it was interesting that all three went off on nationalistic or religious tears.
They did call Dostoevsky vulgar—and well, they sort of had a point: some of his scenes are outright pulpy, and he was known to read about crimes in newspapers to get some ideas for his works. But he still had greater religious and prophetic insight than Tolstoy, even as Tolstoy was the better artist. I don't think that Tolstoy ever really understood what the Gospel is about; and his moralistic, puritanical end is rather sad, totally contrary to the impetus of his art (but of course, by that time he had started denouncing art, like a proper puritan).
After you read the novel, "Anna Karenina" watch the 1995 movie, "The Bridges of Madison County." Two women from a very different time but faced with the same choice.
The difference between them is that Anna Karenina is a drug addict: she was addicted to morphine a/k/a laudanum. When she gave birth to that illegitimate daughter, which almost killed her, the doctor gave her morphine because that's all they had back then for pain, etc. As the novel progresses, so does her addiction, until she can't sleep, go out, or do anything without morphine. Other people in the novel (such as her sister-in-law Princess Oblonsky, a/k/a Dolly) notice her addiction, and warn Vronsky, who knows already, but no one can figure out what to do. And the night before her suicide, Anna pours her "usual dose" of opium, and the next morning, takes a little more, and goes out and hurls herself under a train. (Sorry if I spoiled the ending for you.)
Basically, Anna Karenina is a damn good portrait of addiction in action. True, the references are brief, often subtle, sometimes euphemistic, but they would have been perfectly clear to a Victorian audience. (Modern readers also often miss the rather plain reference - to a Victorian - to birth control in Ch. 23.) I think some of it is that most modern readers don't think in terms of Victorian ladies - even Russian Victorian ladies - being drug addicts. (Somehow humans always think sex, drugs, and wild music are modern.) But some of them were.
Ah, more of a shuffle than a leap, really. I like my parish and the priest, but I'm pretty much all the way onboard with Orthodoxy already as a matter of spirit and mindset. Just a matter of when exactly I would like to pull the trigger and start a new thing.
That's probably true, though the irony of this is that most women crave that stability more than anything! It's innate - how else are you going to expect to raise children and nest into one's old age? Yet at the same time - "You don't want to just be a boring wife/mom, you're going to come to resent it!"
I think that people who attack Western Civilization might want to consider what would come their way from Western uncivilization.
That’s the problem. They don’t see beyond the nose on their face. That’s a legacy of the boomers, each succeeding generation took it and ran a little farther with it. Haley legitimized the statue removal when she browbeat her legislature into taking the state flag down against the wishes of her constituents. Anyone with a brain could see what was coming next.
I have no problem with statue (and flag) removals if it is done by legitimate means with popular input. We should not be constrained to accept put ancestors' decoration on public spaces any more than we should accept how the previous owner decorate a house we have inherited. (Though as I have said before, I liked Rod's one time suggestion of pairing Confederate statuary with statues of civil rights heroes)
The problem's not in the principle, but in the subtext.
Your thoughts here reflect a principle you like to quote: “Nothing in excess.” When I started studying the Classics many years ago I was perplexed that so ostensibly banal a maxim should be inscribed (in Greek, of course) over the entrance to the temple of Apollo in Delphi - for the Greeks the holiest shrine in what they regarded as the centre (“omphalos” = navel) of the world. I have since learned that that principle is a prerequisite for sustained human flourishing - and that only the gods can attain it. We human beings usually fall well short. So the maxim was indeed well placed!
Jon, you're naive to think any of the statue removals were done in good faith.
Can you define "good faith" in this context. I don't think people were lying when they claimed they found the statues obnoxious. You can make the case that they should have been thicker-skinned about such things, but I don't think there's case to be made that they were insincere.
Funny, I don't think I can define "good faith" other than to say they implied they'd stop at the confederates when they had no plans to do so.
I think the point is that they weren't really worried about a limited and egregious issue, they were just making their next move in their ongoing iconoclastic revolution. So it's a type of false pretense about their actual motive. People have now thus learned that you do *not* give this mouse a cookie.
By this statement I now see how the town leaders in times past tore down all the beautiful courthouses and replaced them with brutalist monstrosities that now blight what otherwise should be a charming space.
But you are not a conservative, Jon. Governor Haley and Senators Graham and Scott are presumably conservatives. I will not vote for any Republican who supports statue toppling. Naturally, I will never vote for a Democrat.
I would not support "statue toppling" either- that's just lawless vandalism. But if the people vote on lawful removals? How is that not to be allowed? If you inherited a property from ancestors, would you hold yourself bound to maintain their landscaping and decoration as they left it?
Good argument, Jon. Conservatives have surrendered the cities in which most of these statues were raised. They should have privatized them long ago when it became evident that those who honored Lee and Jackson and Washington and Jefferson no longer wished to live in the modern incarnations of their cities. The people who have taken over these cities hate the people who raised the statues and their descendants. For instance, Mitch Landrieu and his voters despise historic New Orleans, people like me, and most whites. So be it. But don't expect people like me to take this sort of hatred- and that's what it is- with a grin our faces. I know who the enemy is and they are your friends on the left, black and white.
There many oerfectly good reasons people moved out of cities, and other people left rural areas. I would never want to come across as looking downy nose at people who moved for *reasons*. That said, IMO, the tendency of people to pull apart like that furthers our political and cultural dysfunction. If we were living more mixed together I think we'd at least tolerate one another better, and be less fearful, and prejudiced- and I mean everyone.
Are you by chance a teacher?
No.
Ross Douthat put it something like this: “If our liberals don’t like the Christian Right, wait till they see the post-Christian Right.”
OMG, that horse left the stable a LONG time back!
I don’t think so, not in the sense Douthat means. A Nietzschean right, shades of fascism.
It goes along with the atheist philosopher John Gray's insight that it is inconsistent to reject Christianity but then continue to cling to the liberal-humanist values that are its bequest. We would seem to be running on credit for now—credit that is quickly running out. Without some appeal to the heavenly realms, there is no particular reason to believe that all humans have dignity or that vengeance is bad or that it is wrong to idolize power. Indeed, there is no reason to believe in the intrinsic value of anything at all, including human life.
You’ve put it brilliantly here, more succinctly than I would. I’m going to copy-paste. If I use it, Sethu Iyer is the man.
Gray’s virtue is that he’s witheringly honest about what he sees. I haven’t read much of him, but I can see that. What’s the Gray you’d recommend?
I think the only book that I've read by him is *Seven Types of Atheism*, which was good. If I recall, he talks about Lucretius and Spinoza in there, to give you an idea (along with the more usual suspects).
Also, something I was thinking about: do you think it would be coherent to speak of a Christian materialism?—basically, describing spirit as a type of subtle matter instead of matter as a type of crystallized spirit. The virtue I see in that language is its resistance to the spectral abstraction of spirit from flesh.
It just came to my mind again now because materialism is usually associated with atheism, although I think it depends entirely on what is meant by "matter". Phillip Pullman came up with "Dust", for example, which is spirit understood as an elementary particle; and Lucretius' view of matter is almost mystic.
This reminds me of one of Nietzsche's critiques of antisemitism. I paraphrase here: "Its perplexing for a Christian to be an antisemite for when he goes to Rome he worships three Jews."
Three Jews? . . . Does he mean the Trinity? Or Jesus and Peter and Paul?
I was looking at his work *The Antichrist* again the other day, and oh man, he is more insane than I remembered. But nevertheless, he does have some valuable insights from time to time. I mainly appreciate his attacks on a faux-religion that isn't the Gospel but that he imagines to be Christianity. His concept of ressentiment, for example, describes the woke pathology to a T.
No. You have no idea, Anne. None. You sweet summer child.
Hi, Tee. I just want to let you know I signed your name in our Book of Intentions yesterday. We pray for those who are written in the book every mass, and I personally take that to include everyone whose ever been written in it. Anyhow, I just want to let you know you're being prayed for and I wish the best of the Lord's will be done for you.
Amen, and thank you. I continue to lift your name up as well. In Jesus's name.
Just read the comments section of American Renaissance for an hour. The left won't like the post-Christian right.
Exactly. The left is feeding and raising up a doctrinaire racist movement to match its own lame doctrinaire racism. Which was of course predictable. And in my reading, our managerial elite has for some time wanted just this outcome. Because they control the institutions. Once these angry "race realists" move to action, our elite will finally get confirmation of what they've been claiming all along: that the US is a white supremacist nation. Never mind that they themselves have minted these new racists with their nonstop provocation.
It's going to be ugly. Our elites think they can make hay from the conflict they've stoked. They assume they'll just further entrench their power. And they might. But they might be surprised at the bear they've poked.
I've hated watching it take shape. The longer I've watched, the more convinced I am there's method behind it. The provocation is just too constant, too calculated, on multiple fronts at once. It's classic divide and conquer.
This is one of the best things I've EVER read in these boxes.
I find it amazing they think they can control the revolution. Look at how well that thinking turned out historically. The revolution always turns in ways you simply can’t predict.
Hubris is as hubris does.
They are utopians, and are convinced that whatever rises from the ashes of what they destroy will necessarily be more just and equitable than what we have now. They've never considered otherwise.
Thy imagine they would be in charge. You find that assumption on the far Right too.
But no. According to the Jons of the world, the Woke have no pull. Ok then.
Hot take: Jon is Rod’s alter ego.
Right. Jon might taunt- "woke left is anything left of Truman."
And another tired, out-of-context recitation of "Live Not By Lies."
They have cultural influence but that's something we're free to ignore.
It seems to me that the power to get people fired and lock them out of entire professions is something more than cultural power. And anyway, if politics is downstream from culture, then cultural power itself isn't trivial or a thing that can be readily ignored.
This right here. Not only cannot be ignored, but should not ignore. We should call it out and condemn it. Not whistle and pretend it is not there. Because it absolutely is.
Not only people getting fired and their lives ruined, not only locked out of jobs, but wokeness is seeing kids mutilated and their capacity to begin a family destroyed for this Satanic world view. It is seeing chaos at the border and instability overseas.
There is nothing good about it. And it is not just harmless fluff. It is just as damaging as any poisonous ideology that takes hold of people.
No, you're not. Not if you fly on airplanes, go to the ER, enroll your child in a public school, or try to get the facts of any news story (the commenters of these boxes are not typical news consumer, they're expert, but not everybody can be an expert). Wake up.
Fly in an airplane? Go to the ER? Huh? I've done both not all that long ago, and I recall absolutely nothing "woke" about it (which isn't to say there weren't hella-annoying aspects to both)
Having yet another one of those "we leave in different realities" moments.
(As for news stories the facts are there-- what you have to do however is sift them from the slant and the spin-- which can be worse than a carnival tilt-a-whirl)
Just keep on rolling the dice, Jon.
Jon, I feel like you live in the 90s. Pre Google, Facebook and Twitter (and their control of information and everything internet) and pre the Patriot Act with its mass surveillance.
I miss the 90s terribly and wish I could join you there :)
A somewhat whimsical comment, but I appreciate it.
Actually I have Facebook open on another tab right now. But I keep my Facebook very G-rated and non-controversial. My posts this week consisted on a check-in at the beach on Treasure Island while awaiting my car repairs, an approving notice of the weather finally behaving like Florida (not a thirty degree warmer Michigan), and my cat perking up when she heard a dog bark.
You could not drag me into the sewer of the Id formally called Twitter if you waved a winning lotto ticket in front of my nose.
I have said many, many, MANY times, the Woke had no power, only influence outside some hothouse bailiwicks. But you can turn your back on influence.
"If, God forbid, some terrorist attack happens because of Biden’s indifference towards border security, remember this." Rod, over on this side of the pond we'll be rather busy, probably too busy to remember. Too busy getting our guns confiscated, our passports canceled, our locations and movements tracked, our cash transactions outlawed, and God knows what else. Because executive action constituting a de facto Patriot Act Chapter Two will make the original look like pure libertarianism. And don't you think for One. Hot. Damn. Minute. that there aren't heads on the federal payroll thinking about how best to do it.
And where is that Thomas Jefferson statue going? Is it going to be placed in a box and put in a warehouse like in the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark....”we have top notch people looking at it...top notch”
Rod, while the dating scene for us "single seniors" (sorry!) is fraught with weirdness (LOTS of weirdness!), I think you'll be pleasantly surprised to find that there are actually decent and normal women out there who will appreciate a man who is unapologetically cis-hetero and religious. They're out there! The first thing out of my wife's mouth when we met in 2018 was "Do you believe in God?" I replied "Duh, who doesn't?" and we were off to the races!
In Rod’s shoes, I’d be on the plane to the Philippines.
Ha! Rod can't marry a Catholic unless he gets an annulment, or the Catholic woman ceases to be Catholic.
I’m sure you’d find someone happy to convert to Orthodoxy.
There is a new orthodox mission in the Philippines lol. Fr Felipe Balingit has laboured in a beautiful and heroic way these last few years.
My wife has an "uncle" (he's actually a third cousin), advanced in years, with a wife from the Philippines. She takes very good care of him.
A relative of mine married a much younger Filipina. I’ve visited several times (not for women!), and love the country. I know there’s the reputation about old men and young SE Asian women, but Rod could also find an educated woman closer to his age, if he prefers.
I was on a "motorcycle" tour of the Mekong Delta in the early 2000s. (The "motorcycle" was actually a 110cc scooter.) I met an English geezer who was clearly there for the Vietnamese women, although he told me that the most beautiful girls were to be found in Thailand. Sadly, sex tourism is a thing.
Yes, to be sure. In the Philippines, it seems to be mainly for young and feminine wives, though, although there’s no doubt actual sex tourism too. I was travelling for a couple of days with a relative, 18 and very pretty, me in my 50s, and everyone was asking if she was my wife!
I enjoy the island-hopping and the nature. Some great churches to look at too - earthquake baroque - and folk art everywhere.
One of the interesting things for me here is that we could take this piece, swap out any references to "Texas" or "America" and it could just as well describe the same issue as it's playing out throughout the West, from Hungary to Italy to Germany, France, Canada and Britain etc.
The West now seems to be ruled by a globalist elite class who all have the same beliefs, went to similar schools, consume similar culture, and work in areas like media, tech, culture, NGOs, finance etc, and who uniformly believe that the nation-state is an oppressive, vaguely gauche and bigoted antique that needs to be replaced—replaced, of course, by a technocracy overseen by their own class, who have all the proper beliefs and morals.
Their current strategy in re immigration seems to be 1) that more is never enough and that both Justice and the GDP demand an almost unlimited flow of migrants, along w 2) never actually campaigning on this or admitting it in public, while 3) having every one of their media and cultural organs and creators (they own almost all of them) work as an ideological mafia/priesthood, denouncing all opponents and dissenters as evil Nazi Bigots while dictating the dogma of what all Good People need to believe.
Globalist/Nationalist has replaced Left/Right as the major fault line in politics, and the strategy the Globalist class is pursuing—flooding the West with migrants while trying to smother the protests of traditional citizens—is bound to create a major social earthquake before the end of this decade.
I think you are correct.
it seems so odd to me that just about every Western center-left party could lock in electoral dominance if it simply came out against illegal immigration and prioritized the needs of its own citizens instead of foreigners and global capital flows—and yet none of them can even contemplate taking this step.
I guess that's why I'm not in politics!
I think the Left worked out about 30 years ago that the plebs wouldn’t provide enough votes to keep them in power, so they would import a new plebs and get rid of the old one. Quite logical especially as the Right (or at least the business classes) could be persuaded by the advantages of cheap labour.
I have a different perspective from the Lefties I know (who admittedly aren't political bigshots), but for them if any issue or event can be interpreted as helping the poor, brown and oppressed, this mentally and morally unravels them (in my head I see both an alarm being defused and Alex from "Clockwork Orange" no longer able to stomach violence) and they are simply unable to object or even allow their brains to process why anyone else would.
White guilt/saviorism is the Western Achilles' Heel and I think this is the root of the incontinent xenophilia and pathological self-loathing that has been running rampant and redoing all our prior arrangements in the name of "Justice".
I still cannot fathom the idea that you should tear down the social, cultural and economic fabric around you without any plan for future improvement. Is this a form of nihilism, a rage against our parents or against God? Is it Marxist ‘social alchemy’ where it is assumed a just moral order will emerge from the ruins? Or have they heard ‘Imagine’ played so often it replaces the part of the brain that is used for intelligent thought?
All of the above.
I'll go with the last option, there.
And this "Justice" is 100% external to them. There is no longer an inner struggle except to be/do whatever one desires.
"poor, brown, and oppressed" I recognize that mind set, particularly for women. P, B, and O trumps anything.
It's like Brecht's satirical poem, "The Solution", about when a government has lost the faith of its people:
"After the uprising of the 17th of June
The Secretary of the Writers' Union
Had leaflets distributed on the Stalinallee
Which stated that the people
Had squandered the confidence of the government
And could only win it back
By redoubled work. Would it not in that case
Be simpler for the government
To dissolve the people
And elect another?"
Spot on, sadly.
That's why the right needs to have a better/stronger pro-family policy, and an overt embrace of moral traditionalism isn't a bad thing, as lefties will tell you - because a huge percentage of these new arrivals still hew to the traditional family belief/model, and if there's one thing that would get the left to turn off the immigrant spigot it's any indication that these new importees might vote (R) at some point
I think it’s a bold assumption that they care at all what the native population thinks. Like I stated in another post, these ‘traditionalists’ don’t seem to mind scoffing our laws when it suits.
Grover Norquist and Stephen Moore are on the wrong side on immigration.
It's really pretty simple. In Britain they're lucky, they have the paper to prove it. But Occam's Razor applies.
They could not, because women would simply bound even *further* Left.
Modern women are utterly and entirely captured by the notion that The Oppressed must be aided and supported at all costs, in all situations, no matter how catastrophically misguided the method, and no matter the actual consequences.
To them, anything less than this deranged fanaticism is equivalent to Nazism.
And they seem to count on the immigrants to have Globalist views themselves. But I don't think they do.
Not yet but wait until they go through the school system.
That's a good point.
Rod, you write too much... I love it, keep it comin'! ;-)
Just saw this on X as a response to the sex/gender stuff:
<<Santiago Pliego
@SantsPliego
I don't have time to write a longer thread, so the simplest way I can put it:
Young men are fed up with the bullshit of liberal modernity.
They know it's fake. The psyop is over. They are ready for reality. Yeah, a cohort of young men use this to turn to dark places—inceldom, blah blah blah.
But generally, young guys (gen Z esp) have grown up in a world where older generations ignore their eyes and ears and pretend obvious things about the world are not true.
They are done.>>
If that's the case, then all respect to the Live Not By Lies generation.
My 20-something Christian Conservative daughter would sure like to find a like-minded man. Man....not a boy. It's tough out there when you aren't woke.
My 37 yr old Christian Conservative son is in the same situation with finding a woman that's not woke and/or a "progressive" Christian. I think he would only be moderately unhappy with me "outing" him, since he's actively looking and recently started using online dating, including Christian Mingles.
He's in the Minneapolis, MN metro area which generally has a liberal progressive population. Since I've shared this much, I'll add he has an excellent career and income, owns his home, good looking, never married and great physical shape :-)
This is much appreciated because I am actively trying to matchmake, and he sounds like a super guy. Unfortunately I've been told the age gap is a bit too wide. My very best wishes to him, and may God bless his endeavor to find a Godly wife. I will keep my ears open.....just in case.
I can understand problems with age differences, though they are not insurmountable. Praying for both.
My 21 year old son feels the same way ;)
A lot of "failure to launch" young men out there.
During Covid, if I wanted to order a cappuccino at Cafe Trieste, the famous North Beach cafe where the likes of Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Jack Kerouac hung out during the Beat era, I had to show the staff proof of vaccination. I refused. But during the same period thousands of people crossed the border, unvaccinated, unvetted, and disappeared into the deepest recesses of the nation. Just another example that the pandemic was less about health than control of its erstwhile citizens.
You could also walk should-to-shoulder in a large crowd to participate in a protest (riot) if that action supported an acceptable narrative.
However, being with your loved ones while they were dying in a hospital was completely unacceptable!
There was a flu epidemic in 1958, which killed one to two million people around the world. President Eisenhower caught it but obviously survived. Can you imagine if any of the Beats were told to wear masks or provide proof of vaccination at Cafe Trieste? My gosh, they would've trashed the place.
Do you want more marriages? There are mentions of obstacles you see with women, but not with men. Here's my Rx: Men, ditch the porn and your wanking habit entirely.--that's right, entirely. Assuming you also bathe every day, are not unemployed, and regularly leave the basement computer behind, many women will be attracted to you. Men, if you really want to marry, do try this. Heaven is very willing to be a matchmaker for men like this, who are as rare as hen's teeth. God will be very interested in seeing you happily married if you are a man with clean hands and a clean mind.
Also, be actually ready to TALK on a date about something other than video games, and don't just gobble your food and ask if she wants to go back to your place.
Does that happen? Oh man, that's depressing. Who teaches young men how to be men anymore?
Sadly, it does. My husband and I were taking a group of college students to an art museum once, and one of the male students was seated next to a female student and talked to her for a solid hour about when and how Superman's cape changed in the comics. When we stopped for a restroom break, she made sure when she got back in to sit in another location.
That could just be autism, my 8 year old does the same…
Could be. But it's less attractive in a 20 year old.
It’s not attractive in anyone but if he was autistic he could not help it.
That's nutty.
Women aren’t great shakes either. When I was single some of my friends were just brutal to guys who would try to approach them. This was 25 + years ago. I would go on a lot of dates and if it didn’t work out I would thank them politely for the date but say I didn’t feel there was sufficient chemistry to continue. We always left as friends. I don’t know if women do this today.
No idea. When I dated, I'd do the same thing - when it didn't work out I'd thank them and say I didn't see a future together, but we could still be friends. Most guys agreed or were friendly about it, but a couple were not: "Well, why'd you go out with me if you were interested?" To which the honest answer would have been "I didn't know I wasn't interested until I saw you be rude to the waitress." (Or other things.)
And there’s Rick Moranis’s advance of the art of courting into whole new territory: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=D2CZLtoYLWw
Oh, I remember that movie well!
" There are mentions of obstacles you see with women, but not with men. "
Perhaps here, sure. There's no shortage of crticism of men around. So much so that "Where have all the good men gone?" is an entire genre in the popular culture.
" Assuming you also bathe every day, are not unemployed, and regularly leave the basement computer behind, many women will be attracted to you"
This is patently untrue.
You missed the important part--no porn/wanking. Heaven isn't interested otherwise (and neither are most women).
Is this in response to the second point? That's still not true, even as amended, but does start to point out why: very salient criteria are missing from your list.
You are missing the important point that this is a two-sided coin. Women are also consumers of porn, including "romance novels" (who do they think they are kidding?).
The porn companies release their data every year. One of the largest such sites found that women average more time per visit than men and search for more hardcore content than men. Another site found that women spend more on the site's paid content than the men do.
But you keep on with your out-of-touch canard that if men would just do A, then everything would be fine. The system is broke and it isn't getting fixed if people don't realize that it isn't just one part that stopped working.
Try it, Brendan. Just try it, and watch Heaven smile. Get out of the alternative reality of the manosphere and really try.
I believe that things will overall work out for a man who seeks first the Kingdom of God, and that any of my own problems are largely the result of too often getting distracted from that project. So, I like the ground you're holding here; and I think that a man should stop wasting time on blaming anyone or anything else, least of all women. Much isn't within our power, true—but a lot still is. And resentment is always a cancer.
You give me hope, Sethu.
This sounds like the absurd prosperity gospel applied to dating. Men, if just do this one thing everything will be ok. Yeah, right. God makes no such promises.
Thankfully, I am no longer a single young man. I feel for them. Society views them in the worst possible light.
Heaven is interested in sending children to homes where fathers are not pornsick. In fact, Heaven is extremely interested in that. Make yourself of interest to Heaven.
I have been out of the dating market for a while but I did find it hard to meet a wife and I literally did all that. Granted the women I did meet were not that bad either. We were all pretty normal. Eventually I did meet my wife. I do think this whole thing is over blown.
Politicians who pretend that the Islamists and the Woke are not our enemies need to be retired.
Rod, who in God's name are you talking to? There are a zillion essays out there on evangelical and Catholic sites by amazing 20-, 30- and 40- something women who say the men are not out there. Are your male friends in church? If they are not, tell them to get their butts in there, because that is one place where decent women are. Don't like religion? Volunteer for something that involves care of animals. Women are all over pet rescue organizations. Finding marriageable women these days is like shooting fish in a barrel. If you're coming up short, you are not looking.
I assume he's getting a lot of his information from Twitter/X, where I had to start muting people and terms because the constant battle between the sexes is getting tiring. (To be honest, much of the site is turning into Gab and becoming annoying in general.)
I think you may be right. I don't want to say that women are 100% the "good guys" in this crisis, because there's a lot of blame to go around, but often the complaints I see from women have some merit to them, even when the proposed solutions don't seem wise. The complaints I see from men, on the other hand, tend to the self-centered: "Women are bad because they don't like me!" when they haven't done much to be likeable at all. The worst (but not at all uncommon) get into, "they'll have sex with other random guys, so they should be willing to have sex with me," something I have absolutely no sympathy for at all.
Try to be a good man. Don't sit on your arse playing video games and whining on the internet. Find a career that interests you and work at becoming fantastic at it. Do volunteer work. Go to church. Be involved in your community and become a benefit to it and your society as a whole. Find fulfillment in doing these things; it isn't all about finding a woman, and finding a woman may ironically be easier if it becomes secondary to your goal of becoming a blessing to the society you live in.
One of my very, very good friends from college was amazing back then, but really geeky and awkward in some ways. He wasn't a looker, and I don't think that many girls looked twice at him. After college, he got a job, saved his money, bought a townhome, etc., but he also started doing things to broaden his interests - he started running marathons, he did rock climbing, he joined ballroom dancing... By the time he did meet his wife, he had a lot more to offer than, "I'm a computer programmer who likes playing video games in my spare time."
He did it right - he expanded his interests and lived life.
I liked him a lot when we were in college, but I was a disaster then (not that I'm not now, ha ha) and he had some maturing to do as well, and it's probably for the best that we never dated. He's one of the few people from college I haven't lost track of, and I know he struggled for years kind of thinking the marriage thing wasn't going to happen. But instead of getting bitter and complaining and closing himself off, he found ways to get out and live. Eventually, he met the woman he would marry over a dating program (with the geekiest line you can ever imagine) and she's amazing herself, but being there for his wedding in 2016, I couldn't help but be a little in awe of the man that he'd become.
I like Matthew 6:33 a lot: "Seek first the Kingdom of God, and all the rest will be added unto you."
Oh please. Those "zillion essays" are social media validation exercises. I know because I dated one of those essay writers (a Catholic blogger) for a year until she decided that she wasn't really interested in a relationship or marriage because...wait for it...she enjoyed her freedom too much. (And by freedom, I mean being promiscuous; although, I heard she is trying women now) I'm a traditional Catholic man and I know others like me and we don't see these Catholic women at mass on Sunday--they are often at brunch with their friends wondering where the men are, I guess.
I've been on a Catholic dating site and met many women---most were wonderful women with great faith; however, so many were not really interested in a relationship. They liked the idea of being in one, but they never wanted to give anything up. The man would only be an entry in her weekly calendar...who wants that?
Also, woman who ask "where are the good Catholic/Evangelical men" are being disingenuous with that question. They have every bit a long list of "must haves" for a man as their secular sisters, they just want it with a veneer of religion. I feel especially bad for the blue collar guys out there. Catholic women will blather on about finding a "St. Joseph", but very few would deign to date a carpenter. There is plenty of blame to go around, but it is lazy to imply that it is a merely a matter of "where are the men?"
The question they are really asking is ‘where have all the men gone that I am attracted to?’
Those last 5 words are always unspoken but always implied.
Yes, very true. The Catholic dating site I was on had a forum where people could interact. There would occasionally be posts from women about how "nobody" wrote them. Well, once a woman that I had written wrote a post about how "nobody' was sending her messages. So, feeling snarky, I replied to the thread about how I had written her, but I guess I am nobody. I ended up getting several private messages from men who had written women that later posted about "nobody" writing them.
But you know, it's hard to force things. When I was single and newly Catholic in the early to mid 1990s, in Washington, I met single women who shared my faith, and who were conservative, but ... no chemistry. I tended to be attracted to women who were smart, funny, worldly ... but who had no faith. It was only when I met the woman who would become my wife that I found someone who combined my two worlds. That worked well, for a while.
Yep, thinking about it or trying to force it just leads to frustration. It's one of those things that just happens (and really can only happen) when you're not looking.
I remember back then being totally bowled over by a Jewish woman who worked in my newsroom. She was soooo sexy, and funny, and verbally sharp -- all things I associate with Jewish culture. I was completely smitten. But she had no faith, Jewish or otherwise, so I wouldn't allow myself to pursue her, though she indicated interest. Love is strange... .
Yes it usually includes height of 6’ or more, 150k minimum income and the willingness to rear other mens children.
Brutal, but so true!
You've nailed it, Kat.
Yes, 666. Six feet, six figures, six... er... pack.
I'm a conservative Protestant who agrees with Brendan from my side. I'm sorry, Julia, but your comment seems as though it has been lost in cyberspace since 1994.
Lost in cyberspace? Cute. Why don't you come to my PCA church where there's bunches of single women but NO single men? But ... OK. Sit there and feel sorry for yourself and complain about single women for the rest of your life. Or get someone to introduce you to some decent women and then LISTEN to them instead of talking about yourself the entire date and maybe you'll get somewhere.
I'm not complaining on my own behalf, sweets.
But there are several extremely marriageable young men in my PCA church, and a nonexistent number of young women who could be so described.
Your comment is revealing. l'm sorry you have met a lot of clods.
Yes, I have, sadly. And the PCA doctrine of not allowing women to have any voice in a typical service is a tad daunting for many females. If your church is in the PCA-rich southern states, tell your single guys to move out to mission territory here in the Pacific NW where women abound.
I'm in the Chicago area.
One thing I would say on behalf of the boors: men are psychologically wired to want a helpmeet. Because of The Fall, this, like everything else, has tended to go very wrong. Most men just don't have my panache, Julia.
Seriously: men do have this hope in them, the ones who aren't psychopaths, anyway. One problem is that men have a much harder time than women in developing social skills. Add the greater incidents of both ADD and ASD in men ( something like 3 to 1 in the former ), and all of this, or at least the first two, contribute more to the problem of male jerkiness than women realize.
Here is another, huge factor: years ago, I heard an interview with a woman who was a clinical psychologist. She had had an idea about something, and decided to test it on her female patients who were consulting her about their romantic frustrations, so over a several month period, she asked each a simple question.
"Do you realize how hard it is for a man to ask a woman out? That the vast majority of men are terrified of being rejected?"
She said that without exception, each woman was astonished to hear this.
"What? REALLY?"
"Are you serious, Doctor?"
"My Lord! Is this true? I've never heard this before!"
Etc., etc., etc.
So, Julia, taking all of this into consideration, plus fifty years of celebration of women to the corresponding slighting of men, and it becomes a little easier, I hope, to be sympathetic to men who lack the social graces.
Yes, Bobby, although my two brothers, of very different temperments, never had that problem. Women are terrified of being rejected too - and we're graded a lot more on our looks than you guys are - so you're not going to get sympathy from us on this one. Because when I see a guy who's afraid to come talk to me during church coffee hour, much less ask me out, I wonder what's this guy going to do if some one tries to break into our home? What if some hoodlum threatened us on a date? If he's afraid of *me,* what else is he afraid of? Men want a helpmeet. Women want protection. If she's not confident he's up to that, she'll look for someone who is.
Someone several comments up said that women look down on blue collar guys; that's changing. Women want guys who can fix things, who know their way around a gym and could defend them if push came to shove. It's not our job to build confidence in you. That's groundwork that should have happened in high school and college years.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that you've never been on a date with Bobby Lime or the "bunches of single women" at your church so you don't know how either act on a date, yet you assume Bobby doesn't listen and sits around complaining whereas the women...I guess just sit there looking pretty and confused as to why those darn men don't just step up to the plate.
Your views are, in the long run, most detrimental to the single women because you don't seem to be able to fathom how they could possibly have any agency in their situation or your role in perpetuating that belief.
Are any of these lovely ladies interested in coming over to Orthodoxy? It’s a dating desert over here.
I think it's easier to convince a woman to change churches to be with a man who is assured in his faith. That being said, as a woman who came to Orthodoxy in her early 20s, there wasn't much of a "dating pool" to speak of.
In my experience, Lutheranism was a similar desert experience as far as dating was concerned A Lutheran single group I briefly joined attracted an in-group of eccentrics and loners which kept more dateable people from joining. One women from the group just gave up and started dating a Unitarian. Much of it was about group dynamics and unfortunately the forever bachelor founder drew like members to this group and wouldn't give up the reins of leadership or allow for much change.
Hungary is not a very religious country, alas, but at MCC (Matthias Corvinus Collegium) here in Budapest, I'm told there are lots of smart, ambitious, religiously serious young women -- usually Reformed -- who are marriage minded. I'm told that one problem here is that educationally accomplished young women are seen as intimidating by men in their generational cohort, who back off and sulk. Ergo, these women are more interested in dating Western men, who are both ambitious and can tolerate women of accomplishment.
I have no actual idea how true that is, as I don't speak the language, and that's not my generation (and hey, I'm all about age-appropriate courtship). But that's what I hear.
You could easily date a woman at any age in her 30's. I would see nothing wrong with that. Maybe even start a second family
Some years back Meagan MacArdle wrote a piece from a woman's point of view which basically said, "Ladies, stop looking for Mr. Perfect and maybe settle for Mr. Good Enough. That should be advice to everyone. I get that wildly different POVs on religion and politics can be a deal breaker, but do all t's have to be crossed, all i's dotted and commas and semicolons inserted in the same places?
I agree totally, Jon. What growth is there in marriage/love together if you both start in the same place? My wife's Southern Baptist and I'm Catholic. We respect and learn from each other constantly. Of course, it helps we were married in our 40s and had no plans for children.
It’s difficult to determine what’s really going on because I am neither young or dating. Problems were many for me when I was single the second time round from 95-00. From what I see online and listening to others with marriageable children those problems have only gotten worse.
the executive branch of the federal government is refusing to enforce the laws of this country.
Sure, and that may be bad. But it's not unprecedented. Executive branches constantly have to make decisions about what and how much to enforce. Everybody knows about laws that don't really get enforced. Again, this particular case may be a bad thing, but it's hardly a prima facie constitutional crisis.
Right. I was furious about Obama’s refusal to defend DOMA.
"...it's hardly a prima facie constitutional crisis"
I would agree. There is definitely a clash of governmental power here, but there has been no challenge of Federal legal supremacy, and so there is no crisis. Heck, back when segregationist governors tried to challenge Federal supremacy with their flawed interposition legal doctrine it didn't rise to crisis level.
Let's all please keep our heads screwed on right.
I think that ship has probably sailed. . . .
Probably, but it sails wherever Greg Abbott wants it to sail. Abbott may now be politically more powerful than Biden.
Oh, sure, but I meant the part about all of us keeping our heads screwed on straight.
That may well depend on Abbot's leadership abilities. So many cards are now in his hands.
Subjectively, though, I think a lot of us wanna see this showdown happen and feel like it's been a long time coming. I live two miles from the Capitol here in Austin, and this is reminding me why Texas is awesome.
I think Abbott's leadership abilities center on his own ambition.
Which is why the Times and the WaPo were caught with their pants down.
They were not. They chose to ignore the story.
Nothing happens with just one cause, or one motive. They also didn't have a clue what to say about it.
Had someone in Little Rock had begun to pick off a few of the paratroopers, there might have been a bloody mess.
A precise demonstration as to why moderation is important. Had that alt history happened we would have been much worse off as a nation, for no good reason at all.
Ironically, the schools of Little Rock are about as segregated today as they were in 1958.
I attended public schools in the early 70s when liberal pedagogues decided that busing was in order. My already racially diverse elementary school was torn asunder, with kids bused across the City to achieve some sort of faux ethnic balance. San Francisco public schools were never the same after that.
My granddaughter is in the most racially diverse school in town, and the newest. The state wants it broken up for "balance," with the result that children of color will be sent to physically inferior schools and replaced with white kids (Black state bureaucrats enabling white privilege - amazing!). Besides the parents' objections the big obstacle is a serious shortage of bus drivers: it might not happen for that alone.
This doesn't help:
"Top U.S. Senate negotiators said Thursday that final details on an immigration policy deal remain under debate in the U.S. Senate, despite outside pressure from GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump to sink any agreement as he makes immigration his central campaign message... Like in his first presidential campaign, Trump has made immigration a main theme, often referring to migrants claiming asylum at the Southern border as an “invasion.” On his social media site, Truth Social, he has urged congressional Republicans to not accept a deal.
During a closed-door meeting on Wednesday night, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky acknowledged the difficulty of passing an immigration bill and the potential it would undermine Trump, the top Republican negotiator of the deal, Oklahoma Sen. James Lankford, told reporters at the Capitol."
https://southdakotasearchlight.com/2024/01/25/u-s-senate-republicans-insist-they-wont-bow-to-trump-demands-to-quit-immigration-talks/
Basically, the Senate is being asked to not do anything, either, by the former President, and everyone's acting like that's just fine and dandy...
I have no confidence that any deal with Biden would be worth the paper it's written on. Count on the GOP to live up to their name, "The Stupid party". I would normally applaud negotiators being able to agree, but these ain't normal times, and the Republicans have a bad habit of caving.
Well, stupid like a fox. Tom Cotton (R-SAM'S CLUB) will take anything for more war in the Ukraine.
The GOP has no interest, and has never had an interest, in passing a decent immigration bill because cheap migrant labor is a mainstay of too many industries (dairy farms, slaughterhouses, meatpacking plants, agriculture - especially at harvesttime, service industries, construction, etc.) and the border is always one of those great ways to gin up the base whenever an election comes up. To be fair, it's the same on the Democrats' side. But until you find enough white people to do the hard nasty work of this (and every) country... migrants willing to work for $3.00 an hour are coming in. And, to be fair, Saudi Arabia and most of the wealthy Middle East does the same thing.
"A decent immigration bill. . ."
Well, I can remember when we had one in effect: it was called the McCarren-Walter Act. And I think Pat McCarren and Francis Walter were both Democrats.
Ah, but that act - The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 - was all about the Cold War and, if you look at the quotas list, you'll notice there were no quotas for Mexico, nor any prohibitions against seasonal working migrants. America needed migrants from Mexico to pick the fruits, nuts, and vegetables, and they're not prohibited in the Act.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_and_Nationality_Act_of_1952
Instead, Mexican farm and railroad workers were deliberately imported from 1942-1964 by the Bracero Program. 5 million and counting.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bracero_Program
Like I said, as long as Mexicans et al are needed for agriculture, etc., they will always be brought / allowed in, either obviously or sub rosa.
The way robotic fruit picking is advancing that won't be for much longer.
There's more to it than that. What they come up with will be a complete fig leaf for the Ukraine money that will fix nothing. NBC Network radio news reported at 11 a.m. EST today that Biden he would back what the Senate comes up with, which means it's going to be a greeting card en espanol. Abbott has also flatfooted that.
This is Biden's move (as I mentioned above): Ignore the actual border while painting Trump as the bad guy with an assist from McConnell and his lackeys.
This is a psyop, Eve, don't be deceived.
It's Republicans who are saying that Trump is pressuring them. What's "psyop" about that? Oh, I know - they're RINOs. If everyone who criticizes Trump is a RINO, then there are no RINOs, just Republicans, and Trump really is going to lose in a landslide.
Eve, all Republicans except for the corporate interests and what's left of the Kempites want America's borders to be defended and tens of millions of illegals to be sent back home. The Republican establishment forces your average Republican into the arms of Trump. They are so stupid. McConnell. Lankford. Thune. So many others.
What you have to face is that so far McConnell, et al, are smart enough to stay in power, and when push comes to shove, Republicans vote them in by huge majorities. John Thune's approval ratings in ruby-red South Dakota are through the roof. Same with McConnell's in Kentucky. There's more than just corporate interests and Kempites that keep these guys in power.
True. The agony of illegal immigration is less acute in South Dakota, probably limited to meatpacking plants. That is the same in West Virginia and Kentucky and probably twenty-five other states. In the Washington DC metropolitan area, you've had many suburban towns become majority-Hispanic in only a decade or two and the former inhabitants disinherited. What I see in McConnell and Thune and Lankford are men who not only appease the corporate interests of their states, they are unable to understand why their own voters are repelled at becoming a minority in their own country.
I know some small towns up here that have become half Hispanic, because of the meat-packing plants. And probably working some other places, like some dairies... it's hard to tell. Let's just say the employers don't publicize who they're hiring.
It's not as bad as some places, but it's surprised some of our recent new arrivals who came to South Dakota looking for freedom and majority...
Attorney General Merrick Garland is a mean and vindictive man. If Governor Greg Abbott of Texas defies the federal government, he will likely send US Marshals to Austin and have him arrested.
To be met by Texas Rangers and troopers. Let the games begin.
Garland will have any encounter filmed and he will prosecute everybody in the Texas National Guard.
He can make all the noise in DC he wants. Abott will also film the encounter and have Garland and his goons up on charges. That's what happens when all pretense of your authority melts away.
The Feds are not kings and states are not subordinate to the Federal government.
Abbot is already defying them. Biden laid down a deadline for Abbot to get out of the way of the Feds and Eagle Pass. Abbott gave them the two middle finger salute.
Can't you just imagine - pre dawn raid of the Governor's mansion in TX, Abbot being manhandled out of there... Every Republican ad for the rest of the election cycle would have footage of it!
Really doubt Abbot is not prepared for that. Not only with cameras set to go and independent news guys like Alex Jones and Steven Crowder on standby, but it will be on camera and Abbot will be in his wheelchair.
And lawyers. Lots of lawers, including AG Ken Paxton.
There is no way Biden looks good in this, in an election year. Either impotently stew in DC, or haul a paraplegic out in the full view of the world, using guns to hold the border open to an illegal alien horde.
The Capitol grounds are about two miles from my place, and it feels a little surreal to imagine all this drama possibly going down over there.
Border Patrol has told Biden to pound sand.
https://redstate.com/brandon_morse/2024/01/26/the-american-people-just-demonstrated-to-biden-whyd-hed-lose-a-civil-war-n2169264
That would be surreal. Yes, Trump should make immigration his main point of his campaign.
I think Col. the Rev. Samuel Johnson Clayton should deputize the wedding party, Ethan and Martin Pauley and head for the border. Because Cicatriz is Mexican for Scar.
Ethan Edwards would have this whole thing squared away in an hour or two.
That would be the day!
There is no reason why this has to degenerate into such a conflict. If the Texas people can grant the barest nod to Federal supremacy and go about their business all will be as well as can be until the Federal policy is changed. Don't get in the Feds' faces, be polite, fix the fence after they leave, don't give up, don't give in to negativity that can be exploited by the media.
BTW, I looked over the Max Remington article. It gives compelling arguments why Biden can't nationalize the Texas National Guard without making himself look worse. Perhaps we should be hoping for nationalization.
This is gauche, but Derek, Abbot is the perfect man to be doing this. I can't see the Feds arresting a man in a wheelchair.
True. You shouldn't punch a man with glasses and shouldn't hit a girl.
You wait. On The View they'll start talking about the insurance payments for his injury and isn't he on strong painkillers and don't they affect the judgment?
Oh, Theodore, the one about painkillers is so "them," isn't it?
Watching those chicks is like watching a limbo dance at the bar after 1 a.m. How low can you go?
Thus far, I have been shielded from the full experience, having seen only small clips elsewhere, in venues where they've been made fun of. Is the redhead Joy Behar? What a nightmare!
Yes, that's our Joy. My sore tooth is the wise latina. Golly I can't stand her.
Arrested? On what charge? Sedition? For trying to protect Texas and the country? Biden would look so bad, his standing will never recover.
I think the possibility of me getting remarried is basically zero. I don't know that I'd ever want to. Not that it couldn't be a nice thing, but I don't think that once it's "practical", there's any way I'd want to be that vulnerable again. Not saying men are pigs or anything, generally, I think I probably get along with men better than women, and probably 2/3 of the friends I just felt like I could talk to in my life are male, but I just feel like the dating/marriage part is done.
I think men have a rough deal of it; I think women have a rough deal with it. We're conditioned to think that stable is boring, and that a good marriage has to have the movie-type romance to make it work. My friends grandparents were amazing together, but I doubt there was any "romance"; the grandfather's first wife had died, leaving him with a two-year-old little girl, and in the USSR of 1950, the "solution" to that was either remarrying or leaving the kid in an orphanage. So he quickly remarried. His second wife certainly wasn't perfect (I found her difficult to get along with in her old age), but the stories from my friend about how they really were a shining example of mutual love and sacrifice always made me admire both of them.
I'm glad a lot of young men are finding Orthodoxy. However, I think most of them are going to need a few years of it before they've mellowed out enough to get along with sane women. But what do I know?
I think that this is one of the main lessons of Tolstoy's novel *Anna Karenina*: that boring is typically good; that high drama is most often a sign that things have gone horribly wrong; and that what a lot of people think of as romance might be a type of ideology that isn't all that compatible with sanity or actual communion. You may enjoy this essay (and pretty much every other essay—he's great) by Gary Saul Morson:
https://www.commentary.org/articles/gary-morson/moral-urgency-anna-karenina/
Hm, maybe I'm taking my mellowing-out time in my Eastern Catholic parish, so that I'll be pretty good to go if (probably when) I jump to Orthodoxy? Haha.
Someday, I should probably read Anna Karenina! :) Thank you for the link!
Oh, it is truly worth the investment. As for myself, *War and Peace* is still looking at me from my shelf. . . .
I love that one as well as Anna Karenina. Don't be discouraged by the immediate opening. Soon you will get to Pierre tying the cop to the bear's back.
I’d reread *Anna Karenina* for the 3rd time before I’d reread *War and Peace* once.
Katja, it's a wonderful novel. It even has a married couple (they marry eventually) who have a kind of Ben Op home in the sountry.
Nice synchronicity -- I finally, this very evening, picked it up and started reading it for the first time. Stupid Oblonsky, cheating on Dolly!
I have a feeling that you're gonna like Levin.
Once upon a time, I had hoped to read some of these in the original Russian. About that... I suppose never rule anything out, but I'm not going to be at that level anytime in the near future. :/
"As for Tolstoy I disagree with you altogether. Tolstoy is a magnificent writer. He is never dull, never stupid, never tired, never pedantic, never theatrical! He is head and shoulders over the others. I don’t take him very seriously as a Christian saint. I think he has a very genuine spiritual nature but I suspect that he speaks the very best Russian with a St Petersburg accent and remembers the Christian name of his great-great-father […]
"A writer in the Illustrated London News sneers at Tolstoy for not understanding WAR. ‘Poor dear man!’ he says. Now, damn it, I’m rather good-tempered but this is a little bit too much. Did you ever hear such impudence? Do they think the author of Resurrection and Anna Karénin is a fool? Does this impudent, dishonourable journalist think he is the equal of Tolstoy, physically, intellectually, artistically or morally? The thing is absurd. But when you think of it, it’s cursedly annoying also. Perhaps that journalist will undertake to revise Tolstoy more fully – novels, stories, plays and all."
James Joyce 1905 (he was 23)
In another place he writes that the press would call Tolstoy vulgar, except they know he's a prince. Much much later he said that the three writers of fiction he liked best were Tolstoy, Kipling, and D'Annunzio, paused and said it was interesting that all three went off on nationalistic or religious tears.
They did call Dostoevsky vulgar—and well, they sort of had a point: some of his scenes are outright pulpy, and he was known to read about crimes in newspapers to get some ideas for his works. But he still had greater religious and prophetic insight than Tolstoy, even as Tolstoy was the better artist. I don't think that Tolstoy ever really understood what the Gospel is about; and his moralistic, puritanical end is rather sad, totally contrary to the impetus of his art (but of course, by that time he had started denouncing art, like a proper puritan).
After you read the novel, "Anna Karenina" watch the 1995 movie, "The Bridges of Madison County." Two women from a very different time but faced with the same choice.
The difference between them is that Anna Karenina is a drug addict: she was addicted to morphine a/k/a laudanum. When she gave birth to that illegitimate daughter, which almost killed her, the doctor gave her morphine because that's all they had back then for pain, etc. As the novel progresses, so does her addiction, until she can't sleep, go out, or do anything without morphine. Other people in the novel (such as her sister-in-law Princess Oblonsky, a/k/a Dolly) notice her addiction, and warn Vronsky, who knows already, but no one can figure out what to do. And the night before her suicide, Anna pours her "usual dose" of opium, and the next morning, takes a little more, and goes out and hurls herself under a train. (Sorry if I spoiled the ending for you.)
Basically, Anna Karenina is a damn good portrait of addiction in action. True, the references are brief, often subtle, sometimes euphemistic, but they would have been perfectly clear to a Victorian audience. (Modern readers also often miss the rather plain reference - to a Victorian - to birth control in Ch. 23.) I think some of it is that most modern readers don't think in terms of Victorian ladies - even Russian Victorian ladies - being drug addicts. (Somehow humans always think sex, drugs, and wild music are modern.) But some of them were.
Huh, interesting—I didn't pick up on that aspect.
Same with Madame Bovary.
Icarus flying too close to the sun.
Looking forward to hearing about your eventual leap! (too soon?)
Ah, more of a shuffle than a leap, really. I like my parish and the priest, but I'm pretty much all the way onboard with Orthodoxy already as a matter of spirit and mindset. Just a matter of when exactly I would like to pull the trigger and start a new thing.
"We're conditioned to think that stable is boring, and that a good marriage has to have the movie-type romance to make it work. "
I think this is vastly more true of women than men.
That's probably true, though the irony of this is that most women crave that stability more than anything! It's innate - how else are you going to expect to raise children and nest into one's old age? Yet at the same time - "You don't want to just be a boring wife/mom, you're going to come to resent it!"