"Parents in California and more liberal states are probably in a politically and culturally hopeless situation. At least other states can be sanctuaries for them."
There will be a great sorting. I'm in a state where elected officials have taken a definitive stand against this; people will come here who want to escape the California madness. But I have little doubt that people from my state - the type who have those "In this house we believe..." signs in their yard - they'll go TO California to live in their leftist utopia. And let them.
We're rapidly approaching the point where there are but 2 choices - either the "fascism" of Trump or DeSantis, or the "inclusiveness" of those who think kink "butt sluts" have more right to your children than you do.
I'm much more pessimistic. I think we passed the point of no return sometime in the last eight years. It really was Obergefell. A nation which can blithely obliterate in its law what marriage has always meant has passed the "all passengers who do not wish to continue to Hell must depart here" point.
There will be some heroic attempts at resistance. Whoever imagined the Kentucky legislature would be a beacon of sanity and light? But the combination of principalities and powers, useful idiots in all of the kinds of media, and maybe a hundred million Americans who have grown up with all of this madness having formed their "thoughts" about these matters will prove too much for the rest of us to contain, I'm afraid.
I reached this conclusion when I read last year that 70% of Americans now approve of same sex marriage. I really was stunned by that. A Supreme Court ruling was one thing, but that more than 2/3 of the country would endorse it, would be varying levels of enthusiastic about it, shocked me. We are well into Romans 1: 18 - 32 times.
Most Americans will go quietly. The rest of us need to build communities quickly, thousands of post Christian Levittowns. It's interesting that most of us who have this perception think of the intermountain West as the natural locus of such a nation within a nation. Maybe some Southern states, maybe places rarely thought of, such as upstate New York, might also be in consideration.
Everyone thinks The Authorities would never let us get away with it. "Biden has the F - 17s," goes the cliche. But I think of the authorities as men like the magnificent Nashville officers who charged toward danger, Judge Newman and the state prosecutors who brought Ellick Murdock ( proper pronounciation ) down, the large number of people still in our military who are appalled by what we've become.
We still have a hardy minority who, whatever their theology may be, haven't yet bowed the knee to Baal. I'm not a John Brown, except I'm old and would be dispatched quickly by The Authorities. To riff on the Woody Allen joke about his Vietnam era draft classification as hostage material, I see myself as early fatality material. We wouldn't go after Them, but They would almost certainly come after us.
I still try to find beauty in every day life, but it is so frustrating trying to raise a normal kid in this culture.
The thing that gets me is that a lot of this can be put at the feet of Christians. I fell into the ‘it’s just a fad’ thinking and ‘dude, they’ll grow out of this when the adults in the room tell them what’s what.’ But the adults never showed up. And, worse, went along with stupid.
For me, it’s just so hard to believe that many volunteer to have dysfunctional lives because all my husband and I wanted growing up was normal. As is, a traditional nuclear family in the suburbs. A relatively quiet life w/o drama popping out of every corner. Our families were so messed up and I see the old dysfunctional patterns in the way the culture acts. It’s so sick and sad to watch. It’s truly demonic. There’s just no other word for it.
I think that with Jesus there’s always hope.
I’ve hit a point where I’m grateful all of this is happening because it just means that Jesus will be coming back sooner rather than later And that will be the final victory over all the crazy. That’s why I can’t truly despair like I want to some days. I still have to do my part for the kingdom, but there’s only so much I’m required to do here, now, today. It really doesn’t matter what came before, but how we react to these situations and the people around us now. That’s really all we can do. Just move forward one step at a time.
Goethe's "Verweile doch! du bist so schön!," on the one hand; and on the other von Hoffmannsthal's "Wie kann das sein, daß diese nahen Tage Fort sind, für immer fort, und ganz vergangen?"
No, I wasn't strong enough. I just withdrew deep inside my own mind so it was as if it was happening far away from the real me. As much as abuse is claimed to turn victims violent and becoming in turn abusers, a whole lot, a majority, grow up to revile such behavior and abhor the thought of doing such harm.
Sorry, I disagree with you, liberals like myself brought about this disaster far more than any Christian, and mixed up a bitter cup for all of us, unknowingly. Mea culpa. You may freely take responsibility for Dubya's torture wars, or for cheering and clapping while soulless capitalism destroys the planet unrestrained as we consume our way to living on a landfill, or for covering up child abuse in your ranks, or whatever else you feel complicit in, as a conservative Christian, but the trans phenomena comes from the deep bowels of liberal idealism and its quest for unconstrained liberty and self-definition. The mass shootings, regardless of the killer's gender issue, are also mostly the fault of American liberals, not the gun nuts. We always had plenty of guns in this country, but not so long ago, within living memory, a mass shooting was a huge deal. Not anymore. What changed in the last decade? Certainly not gun laws. No, the madness has increased, the culture is getting angrier and more violent, and by "the culture" I just mean mainstream American culture, which is predominantly liberal, let's admit it.
People like you are the ones who will likely redeem the rest of us, especially when it comes to this trans business and various other liquid modern dissolutions. I sincerely doubt that the liberal impulse will ever dissipate from mankind's heart, however, so I have no fear for it, but consequences are a bitch.
I am voting Republican in PA regardless, and tell my liberal friends about it just to see the looks on their faces. They are discombobulated. Losing some friends, gaining others. Growing less and less patient as the years wear on.
I'm not sure you didn't misaim your comment. I agree with everything you wrote. And I loathe the Republicanism of the last forty years.
I've started to see articles about Miss Hale's odd fixation on remaining a child. The transgendered community ( how do they sort themselves out, I wonder? ) is attacking Christians for existing. One article lamented the parents' refusal to acknowledge their daughter as a man.
Who was Peter Pan.
The response of all of the rest of us should be that she was severely mentally ill. I believe this is true of all "transgenders," that, or they are demon influenced. We shouldn't hesitate to say so.
No argument here, but I was responding to the heartfelt comment by lovepeace2022, including: "The thing that gets me is that a lot of this can be put at the feet of Christians."
If not for Christians holding the line -- and all other religiously faithful -- we would be polygamous cannibals by now, probably.
This is the second time today that a commenter's remarks aimed at somebody else have landed on me. I wish Substack could do a better job with its delineations.
Contrary to most presumptions, the world is not a rational place. Libertarianism is the other fig leaf, for it depends on order, neglecting mystery. However, everyone living faithfully under one ancient infallible creed is similarly a difficult proposition.
I could be fairly described at this point in life as a Christian, libertarian populist whose views fall within a belief that God is infinitely wiser than I, yet it's still possible to find how He would have us live. I asked Him a long time ago to show me the truth. I have not been disappointed in that continuous process, though the revelations have been disappointing. No fig leaves. As time goes on, His wisdom is only further confirmed, and the faith verified.
DeSantis is NOT a fascist. He promotes traditional family values. He also is admirably pushing back hard on the DEI establishment in public colleges and universities. A fascist would not sign into law expanded school choice like DeSantis has recently done. The list goes on. Care to offer any examples to support your view of him?
"It is possible that some specifics in the manifesto are legitimately not the public’s business, or reasonably could spark copycat killings. If so, police should show it to independent journalists who can be trusted to report its contents with discretion."
I'm not familiar with the ethics and standards to which journalists are held, but I don't understand why the whole manifesto couldn't be released unredacted. The threat of copycat killings is already existent. If there is an argument being made within the manifesto that rings true enough with members of the Alphabet community, surely the rest of society would look in horror as an appeal is made to the manifesto to justify the killings. Let the uncensored truth come to light to do its work.
In general, I'd agree. On the other hand, there may have been certain people that she sought out specifically, and if she ranted specifically about them, even if the ranting is 100% slander, the internet is not kind - stuff like "Mr. X is a child molester who patted my head on the way to gym class one day and I didn't like it and he didn't apologize" does not make it easy for Mr. X to put in a rebuttal. And for the next 20 years, when someone starts typing Mr. X's name, the auto fill will go "Mr X. ... is a child molester".
Right on. You know who really is “transphobic” and hates trans people? Andrew Sullivan and other staunchly pro-gay-marriage but anti-trans voices. I read Sullivan the other day lamenting trans madness - but the trans people were making *the identical argument* I personally heard Sullivan make countless times, with great eloquence and tears in his eyes, during the gay marriage debates of old. I remember Sullivan saying something like “why would God give me such deep love for another man if it’s a sin?” Of course that argument made no sense at the time, but at least be consistent and embrace the trans variation on it. Yet when trans people say “a loving God wouldn’t want me to stay in the wrong body” or whatever, Sullivan calls them out and attacks their ideology. There is no logic there, there truly is only hate for a different group. Me, I opposed rewriting Genesis then and I oppose rewriting Genesis now, not because I’m hateful or trans phobic but because I think God knows better than I do!
As for the Satanic element of it, see That Hideous Strength. Or Walker Percy, who in the *1980s* was already predicting that liberal elite doctor types would inevitably end up sexually abusing children. Percy, unlike Sullivan and co, actually understands logic and consequences of ideas…. More on that here:
“ If there is one unforgettable takeaway from the book, it is Percy’s reiteration of his fellow legendary Southern Catholic writer Flannery O’Connor’s insight: apparent virtues, like tenderness or compassion, when divorced from the divine source of all virtue, inevitably lead to the death camps – or to Epstein Island. “Love is love,” after all, even for adults and their prepubescent paramours. Dostoevsky wrote that without God, everything is permitted. He was right, but only halfway so. As the children in Percy’s tale, and far too many real children today, could tell you, without God, everything – in the worst sense of that word – is mandatory.”
The little girl whom Stavrogin rapes in The Devils tells him before hanging herself, "You have killed God." The chapter, called Stavrogin's Confession, was taken out by the censors and is today usually published as an appendix (cf. Magashack's masterly Penguin translation, still widely available).
Going after Sullivan. It's a dark and lonely job, but somebody has to do it. I get that he'a friend of unser Wirt, but you are to be thanked for having crisply and accurately summarized the sophistry of his position and giving me the day off. Feser's crack is a good one, but the thing about the Mensheviks is that the Leninists just walked over them. There is an element of fear in Sullivan's newfound aversion to the rest of the alphabet, don't you think? If A, then B.
"No place to hide" -- it's absolutely true. I'm old enough to remember the days of "let San Francisco be San Francisco and the Bible Belt be the Bible Belt." But in small towns such as Taylor, Texas, pop. 15,000, the radicalized city staff sees it as their solemn duty to spread the woke gospel and enforce a "pride parade," public opinion be damned. The libertarian "limited government and the constitution" camp just has no answer for this -- only the Rufo/Orban approach stands a chance of resisting it. See the coverage below.
I have a 13-year-old who is incredibly smart but is an angry kid and uses a lot of liberal talking points - including those of the LGBT crowd - as a weapon against those who try to assert authority over her. She finds it the epitome of hypocrisy that traditional Christianity, including that which our church and her school preach, condemns homosexual behavior, because she's so brainwashed into thinking that it's all about "love is love".
I can't say too much more about the situation for the sake of privacy, but as I have been forced to come closer to some of the LGB and Trans+ stuff, it's actually very sad how many of these people feel very lost and alone, feel unloved and unloveable, and fall into the cult of the demonic LGBT+ activists (who do seem to be a small but very vocal part of the movement) who tell them "We love you and we're the only ones who can love you". When it wasn't radical enough to be homosexual, trans came out to push the culture even more out of whack, even though a lot of what the trans+ people push is diametrically opposed to what the homosexuals have been trying to tell people for the last 25 years.
The demons need to be fought against hard, but I think there are also a lot of people who need to be snatched up out of the fire in love because they ended up into something far more sinister than they bargained for.
My daughter went through similar things at the age of 16. Including SSA. I spoke on the phone with a well known Catholic therapist. He told me that girls have a much better track record of "growing out" of it. Well, he was right, she did. She is fairly liberal still and only attends church when she's at home, with us (She's 25 now). I get a lot of eye-rolls until she needs something.
I'm fasting, praying the Rosary, and trying to stay away from confrontations with her now. I have 2 younger son's, who are going through their own storms right now. It can feel overwhelming at times. I have been including Rod and his readers in my Morning Offering for a few years now and will send prayers your way also.
Thank you for sharing. I have a teenager as well and it’s so tough to parent these days b/c everything in our culture has been twisted inside out. You and your family will be in my prayers.
If it's any consolation, I was that kid in the 70's, but beginning at around age 16. I was an obnoxious, angry, smarter-than-the world (haha!), little leftie in training. Hated our culture and hated all religion. Now, I'm an Orthodox Christian who cringes at the memory of that little sh*t know-it-all judge. I have much to repent for. There is hope!
Trans love bombing is as much about agape love as is the lust to drop bombs on foreign peoples because we love democracy. All these enemies fighting on the same side, death and destruction. Now what force would be for this?
Ah, Lord have mercy!--give us rest from the Machine. I think we're seeing another "internal apocalypse of history" now, as Berdayev talked about it: "There is such a thing as the internal apocalypse of history. The apocalypse is not merely a revelation at the end of the world: it is also a revelation of the inner events of history, of the internal judgment upon history itself...History is a tragic conflict between the personal and the super-personal or pre-personal...Personality is active in history, within history the individual is revealed, but history is merciless in its attitude toward personality and oppresses the individual...It may be said that in fact the subject of history is not man, not even mankind, but a non-human reason...History deceives man, using man's self-seeking as a means to attain quite non-human goals. The cunning of history, against which the living personality rebels!"
“An example of the calibre of counsellors who decide if a 12-year-old comes home from school is Kenna Cook, who has access to the kids at Davis Unified [School District]. She held a BDSM group called Slaps Giving; she authored blogs: ‘How to be a better butt slut’.”
Your agent (a Pete Hamill-ism) was recently attacked in these boxes for "grotesque hyperbole" or something for warning that the State was getting ready to mutilate children against the wishes of their parents. Here's what these dimwits don't get: the public schools ARE the State. It's the Catholic doctrine of subsidiarity inverted and weaponized. The State doesn't have to be in Sacramento, it's right down the street when school board meets. If I pay taxes to keep it going, you can bet your ass it's the State operating. Of course, California State law helps them here, or can be made to.
If you want any chance, any chance at all, of resolving this peacefully, then Dissolution of the United States is the only solution. And the chances of that being accomplished peacefully now are very remote.
It will be hard. It will be unpleasant. The United States will lose even more of what precious little standing it has in the world. We will become a bunch of smaller, less powerful, and less wealthy, but still pretty influential nations a la France, Australia, or Japan instead of the great Collossus that the USA has been for the entirety of all of our lives.
There will be massive dislocations. There will be tremendous financial consequences that result in a lower standard of living for all of us.
But the alternative is going to be to lock and load and a tremendous bloodletting that most of you, with little to no personal experience with personal violence and its aftermath will never see coming.
We have plenty of space and resources for us to sort ourselves out and away from each other. It will happen, one way or another. Better to admit failure and work towards as soft a landing as you can.
Kentucky, almost more than any other place at the time, epitomized the struggle of the Civil War. Both Presidents were born here. You can go to both of their birthplaces and do full tours of both in a single day. In an alternative universe, Lincoln grew up to be the president of the Confederacy and Davis led the Union.
The whole "brother vs. brother" thing actually happened here. "Orphan" brigades of volunteers fought on both sides. Kentucky was represented by a star in the national flags of both combatants, even though they didn't secede.
Yes. The Civil War history I grew up with as a boy, Bruce Catton's American Heritage book, said one went north the represent the midwest (and the railroads), the other south to become the spokesman for the planter aristocracy. Jan. 1, 1863, must have been something in Kentucky.
Flannery O'Connor: "Whenever I’m asked why Southern writers particularly have a penchant for writing about freaks, I say it is because we are still able to recognize one. To be able to recognize a freak, you have to have some conception of the whole man, and in the South the general conception of man is still, in the main, theological. That is a large statement, and it is dangerous to make it, for almost anything you say about Southern belief can be denied in the next breath with equal propriety. But approaching the subject from the standpoint of the writer, I think it is safe to say that while the South is hardly Christ-centered, it is most certainly Christ-haunted. The Southerner, who isn’t convinced of it, is very much afraid that he may have been formed in the image and likeness of God. Ghosts can be very fierce and instructive. In any case, it is when the freak can be sensed as a figure for our essential displacement that he attains some depth in literature.” – from her essay “The Grotesque In Southern Fiction”
The military will quickly rout those who will have their peashooters confiscated, who dare mount any violent insurrection against Woke. The American dream might have been liberalism's best hope but ultimately, like all worldly attempts at Eden, is ending in failure. Let's hope it's not ending in "regime normalization" of the whole rest of the world too.
The connections from the acceptance of quee*marriage to this trans destruction seems clear to me. I can recall soon after Canada allowed que**marriage two brothers stood on the steps of their courthouse- maybe Toronto and demanded to be 'married'. The head of the que**marriage movement said that these two were "mocking marriage". I knew the end was nearer than I thought.
"If you could transport yourself back in time to 2003, and tell Americans what the future was going to hold for them and their families if they embraced the LGBT movement, would they have been so eager and so naive? I appreciate gays and lesbians who speak out against the trans insanity, saying there is nothing about supporting homosexuals that requires you to support transgenders. But sorry, that ship sailed a long time ago, with transgenders on board. The logic used to sell Americans on affirming homosexuality — the logic of bodily and sexual autonomy, and personal feelings trumping any other consideration — has also been used to justify affirming transgenderism. The philosopher Edward Feser quipped the other day that watching a leading gay commentator objecting to trans extremism is like listening to the Mensheviks complain that the more extremist Bolsheviks are rushing through the door that the Mensheviks helped to open."
Over and over and over and over again.
Year after year after year after year.
I have posted the following double digit times all over but NOT ON SUBSTACK, so here goes.
There is a line between normal and abnormal. We can't pick up the line and move it over a little in order to normalize a little bit of abnormal without the rest of abnormal screaming, "What about me".
This is what we tried to do and failure was the only possible result.
Can we reverse this? Not until after the catastrophe.
The events of the past few days, and the cultural response to them, are serving to starkly illustrate the fact that Western Society has already transitioned away from the 500-year Post Reformation (Modern) cultural epoch.
As the "Modern" cultural epoch collapsed over the last 30 years, all its institutions (public and private) ceased to perform their founding functions. The news media stopped reporting news, churches moved from worshiping God and providing moral foundation to serving as advocates for secular humanism, and Government established to preserve Natural Rights worked to rescind them! Courts established to implement Justice worked to undermine same. Corporations founded to earn profits for their shareholders instead focused on entirely unrelated objectives. We have observed science and medicine advocate for products and procedures which do objective harm--in direct contravention to their stated objectives! Universities founded to seek Truth now exist to promulgate political narratives.
Since we exist in the transitional phase, we have not yet seen formation of the institutions which will support the new Digital Epoch and its over-arching themes. I expect we will soon find that integration of Artificial Intelligence into human culture will be a major feature. No doubt we will also observe humanity seeking to assume control over realms previously considered the realms of God---life, death, biological sex, all aspects of human reproduction, and global weather patterns.
This moment in history is not an ordinary one. This is a once-every-500-years historical moment. Think of this moment as being analogous to the collapse of the Roman Empire (463-ish), the Great Schism of 1053, and the spark of Protestant Reformation in 1517. Each of those historical moments set the stage for the next 500 years of Western cultural formation.
As such, those living during this transitional moment, as we are, have the opportunity to chart the course. Will we simply lament the loss of what has passed into history, or will we Boldly Go Where No Man Has Gone Before? Will people of integrity and moral vision step forward to help direct human society away from tyranny, and into a new epoch of human dignity and prosperity, which fully integrate all the new technologies and perspectives developed as the Modern era closed? Will we be able to conceive and build new institutions to serve the needs of the Digital Epoch society?
and we have out homosexuals like Douglas Murray and Spencer Klavan telling us how to "save western civilization" when, in fact, they are part of the problem of the sexual revolution that is so bedeviling us. Can sexual revolutionaries save the west? I don't think so.
I have long noted that Conservatives have lost the ability to argue such points with moral authority. We have accepted the terms of the opposition. Conservatives have accepted the concept of "homosexual" as a unique and legitimate human condition. It isn't.
I reject the contemporary concept of "homosexual" or "gay." I view these terms as little more than excuses or rationalizations for immoral sexual activity. Never forget that the concept of a person being "gay" or "homosexual" --as a unique sort of human being, has only been a part of Western society for about the last 150 years. For the rest of human history, we were simply male and female, and our sexual urges and acts were either within the realm of morality, or outside it!
Those who claim to be "gay" or "homosexual" claim to be "born that way" yet provide no genetic evidence. Such individuals also claim that they have no control over their sexual urges. I call bovine excrement! Every human being has the ability to control his or her actions--this is called "Human Agency." Claiming to be "gay" or "homosexual" is, at core, an effort to evade responsibility for engaging in deviant sexual activity.
“Every human being has the ability to control his or her actions--this is called "Human Agency." Claiming to be "gay" or "homosexual" is, at core, an effort to evade responsibility for engaging in deviant sexual activity.”
Sounds good on paper but that is purely opinion. I have grown up around homosexuals. Being gay is not God’s plan. But so is the current condition of all humanity since the fall.
Nobody can take seriously that homosexuality is choice. That opinion is not tethered to reality. Hedonism is a choice. There are plenty of people who love all forms of sex with humans because it is powerful to to mix orgasms with transgression. But real gay people are born that way. They deserve compassion as much as anybody else. We are all fallen, sinful creatures born into a fallen world.
Thanks for the thoughtful response. Yes, 100% my opinion, and I am not aware of any other person who agrees with me. I am on an island! Nobody in public life will discuss this issue in these terms, because to do so invites violence.
Your remarks nibble around the edges, but do not get into specifics. For this reason, for clarity, I refer to sexual acts as opposed to "being gay" or "being homosexual." An 8 year old boy who likes to play with dolls may be called "gay" (effeminate) by his classmates, but that boy has not engaged in deviant sexual acts. This is a key distinction that never gets addressed in contemporary debate.
I do not believe there is any moral issue with little boys who like to play with dolls, or express other effeminate behavior. I believe cultural sex role stereotypes are sometimes too narrow. Some boys want to play with dolls (I did!), and some girls want to drive firetrucks. Fine! Those activities are somewhat outside the cultural stereotypes, but are entirely benign.
My comments above however do NOT refer to this benign sort of non-stereotypical behavior. I refer to the commission of actual sexual acts. My moral compass is powered by Biblical Christianity. Biblical Christianity has nothing to say about boys playing with dolls, but it has a great deal to say about humans engaging in sex acts outside of marriage. Biblical Christianity has a very specific definition of marriage, a very specific purpose for marriage, and very specific purpose attached to sexual activity. The Bible nowhere describes humans as being "gay" or "homosexual," instead, as Jews, Gentiles, males, and females--sinners all! As such, I believe the contemporary "gay" and "homosexual" distinctions are essentially synthetic, meaningless, and intended to conceal an effort to normalize sexual ACTS which fall outside the boundaries of Biblical Christianity.
I said this before, and it's crude and simplistic, but it is perfectly possible to share your views without a Biblical grounding, although I admit it's more tenuous and imperfect. Basically, it's the view that I always personally held, despite being relatively tolerant and liberal-minded, ever since I first found out about anal sex, the same way that I imagine most people first find out: on the playground, among peers, trying to learn and understand the mysteries of life.
Here is one very clear non-mystery to me: the penis does not belong in the anus, where excrement is housed. It does not belong in a girl's anus nor a boy's anus, clearly, and there is something obviously off-kilter about you if that is how you play around, at the very least.
So, I just base it on my visceral reaction combined with a child's innocent logic. I have zero business digging around in anybody's ass, unless I'm a doctor and someone is seriously ill. I concluded that a long time ago and never changed my mind.
If I'm willing to give up libertarian principles while universalizing my preferences, I can functionally arrive at the same conclusion as you.
The problem is that this point of view declares homosexuality as a deviant, disordered orientation, and can easily lead to criminalization. The logic is excruciatingly cold and simple.
Thank you for reminding us of the blunt truth that ought to be obvious. Not to demonize the whole person who might be doing this, but it seems fair to say if a person is putting their anatomy in places where it just obviously doesn't belong there is something wrong.
You know, one clear sign of totalitarianism is when you can't say the most blindingly obvious truth. You can't even claim it as an opinion. A million dollar fine was recently awarded in Brazil for offensive words spoken. Outright prison is next.
By the way, Christians are demonized regularly, they get plenty of tough words sent their way, and for some reason, those hateful, bigoted, regressive, repressive religious nazis can handle it. But when sodomites get their feelings hurt, it's considered violence. Being a real liberal, I call that shit "faggot shit." Then I get banned for pushing the limits, and probably rightly so. Then I have to apologize to everyone.
I used to hang with butch lesbians who used the word faggot as casually as inner city black people use the word nigga.
Just today, a random black guy I met and chatted with in a store eventually called me "nigga," in the most standard and friendly way. That's life on the streets in Philly, where pussies aren't invited, but we do have plenty of brotherly love for the brave.
I found out about anal sex when a Santa Monica surgeon I naively thought a friend took me in his Mercedes sports car to his remote Malibu mountain home. Is it non consensual when you have to consent for fear of being killed? What happens to kids who run away from home, at the hands of the privileged.
I was also eyed up and down by a trusted figure, I know the lecherous leer of a man possessed by his lusts, but never suffered anything more than that. Words fail, Fran.
See...that kind of a situation would have ended up with me in prison for caving his head in with a claw hammer, defecating on his corpse, placing it in his Mercedes, setting it on fire as i popped the clutch and sent it off a santa Monica cliff like a Roman candle.
Law serves as an illustration of what a society considers right and wrong.
The problem with Libertarianism is that it essentially enables anarchy and considers it morally acceptable. Anarchy eventually results in tall piles of dead bodies.
If you take time to learn about the Roman culture from which Christianity sprouted, you will learn that Roman sexuality was brutal, abusive, and 100% about Citizens asserting their authority over non-citizens--slaves, females, and aliens. For example, Romans had no issue with male sexual relations---as long as the Citizen was the penetrator...which illustrated dominance. The male on the receiving end was thus humiliated by his inferior social position.
The new sexual morality the Apostle Paul preached about created an entirely new, and entirely revolutionary sexual ethic, which served to liberate non-citizens from ongoing , sometimes fatal, sexual violence. It can easily be argued that a primary early broad appeal of the new Christian Faith during the late Roman Empire epoch was that it protected the weak from the sexual predations of the powerful.
Committed Christians in the present day continue to advocate for Biblical sexual ethics precisely because we understand what happens in its absence.
Libertarian views don't have to be libertine. What you describe is the end of a tyrannical empire sunk into degradation, a form of slavery to abnormal appetites, against nature. There's a reason that sexual abuses by soldiers have to be tightly controlled in theatres of war, for the evil is so grave that it attracts every moral deformation. In addition, a devolution to totalitarian rule is not palliative, but leads to less individual conscience. Yet no one is sincerely converted to any cause at the point of a sword, and thus accountability to the people is abolished and order can only be enforced by draconian policies that undermine the consent of the governed. The best policy for good order in this world is populism, not elite oligarchy, in which information is freely available without control by allowable propaganda, and open discussions are won through honest evaluation by an informed population. Right now we have an elite intent on de facto abolition of public morality through indoctrinating the young, as per Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals, in order to rule over people bereft of any ability to challenge their tyranny. Recall that the word tyrant means a person accountable to nothing other than self. By the way, Alinsky once visited our Reservation and urged us to forget about older folks, and concentrate on getting hold of the children and indoctrinating them. I see all these Tik Tok videos by educators bragging that they are doing just that. I am happy to say that our people's activists were not on Alinsky's wavelength, as recorded in archival film, even members of AIM. His co-option failed there.
Good and evil run through every heart. It's up to you if you harden your heart to continue to decide for evil. It's not like I don't know the process, from experience. And having made a decision to do wrong that has some pleasures associated, I know there is every incentive to self-deception. I'm not sure exactly what older homosexuals preying on homeless minors is, but grooming doesn't quite capture it. I do know that these individuals had strong drives that evidently through practice overcame scruples if any. I can't say they were entirely bad, but a certain perspective on the receiving end makes it difficult to see them as mostly good. Maybe that respected surgeon with the lucrative practice did a lot of good at the hospital where he made the rounds before anally raping me at his expensive and remote Malibu home poolside, but I didn't see that side of him. Perhaps as some believe, good deeds allow a certain exemption for extraordinary individuals' appetites.
Older homosexuals preying on homeless minors is just plain evil and they should be strung up. This happened to a dear friend of mine. A sweet kid who was born into a no-win situation of insanity and addiction. He just needed parents who loved him. Instead of that he got a pit of queer vipers.
BTW, I am making a comment others make in situations like these, but I do it in sincerity (as do most people I am sure) - I am sorry you had to endure that. What a crappy person that guy was.
We are not sinners because we sin. We sin because we are sinners.
Isolating another person’s sin being worse than one’s own condition is self-righteous. I am always wary of those who point to other’s evil. There is enough to go around.
Yours is certainly not a new or unique argument, nor will be my reply.
I understand you have sympathy for those who live with same sex attraction. It is good to have such sympathy. And I agree we are all sinners. If we are to love our neighbors however, we are to help them, in Christian love, to find the narrow, straight path, not encourage or enable their sinful acts. Similarly, I am accountable for my own acts, and pray my Christian brothers and sisters will help me along the way, guiding me toward the straight path when I am lost.
BBC journalist Hannah Barnes just released an excellent book about the scandal that plagued, and shuttered, the Tavistock clinic, England's only gender clinic for children. The well-researched book shows how the clinicians at Tavistock put children as young as nine on puberty blockers and cross-hormones without knowing the repercussions. Why? Because there was no data that supported what they were doing. They were, in effect, experimenting on kids.
Eventually, Tavistock administrators decided to review their own files to determine the results of their treatment regimens. They learned that their treatment either resulted in no change to their patients, or the treatment had a negative effect. Shockingly, the clinic decided to ignore its own findings and continue the treatment regimen.
Long story short, the clinic has been shuddered by the British government and lawsuits have been filed. One legal expert estimated there could be an avalanche of 1,000 lawsuits coming from parents and now-grown-up patients who state that they were deceived and sold something that never should have been recommended to them.
The U.K., Sweden, Norway, and Finland are backing away from the aggressive manner in which they treat kids in their gender clinics. In the U.S.? Activists are pushing to lower standards even further, which is rather astounding when the standards are barely existent to begin with. Children with gender dysphoria need medical care. They need the best medical care, in fact. But they don't receive it because our activist class pushes for unsafe and experimental medical practices, and then they call anyone a "transphobe" for trying to stop the harm and experimentation inflicted upon these troubled kids.
My wife and I are currently watching a Quebecois policier which is centered around the horrors that haunt a town with an old indigenous school at the top of a hill. Fair enough. You think in 50 years we'll be watching shows with the grisly record of gender-affirming clinics coming back to haunt the perpetrators? Me neither.
One of his best posts in a while.
Sorry, but Francesco speak with forked tongue.
Left or right fork, out of both corners of the mouth.
Si.
Broken clocks an' all that...
"Parents in California and more liberal states are probably in a politically and culturally hopeless situation. At least other states can be sanctuaries for them."
There will be a great sorting. I'm in a state where elected officials have taken a definitive stand against this; people will come here who want to escape the California madness. But I have little doubt that people from my state - the type who have those "In this house we believe..." signs in their yard - they'll go TO California to live in their leftist utopia. And let them.
We're rapidly approaching the point where there are but 2 choices - either the "fascism" of Trump or DeSantis, or the "inclusiveness" of those who think kink "butt sluts" have more right to your children than you do.
I'm much more pessimistic. I think we passed the point of no return sometime in the last eight years. It really was Obergefell. A nation which can blithely obliterate in its law what marriage has always meant has passed the "all passengers who do not wish to continue to Hell must depart here" point.
There will be some heroic attempts at resistance. Whoever imagined the Kentucky legislature would be a beacon of sanity and light? But the combination of principalities and powers, useful idiots in all of the kinds of media, and maybe a hundred million Americans who have grown up with all of this madness having formed their "thoughts" about these matters will prove too much for the rest of us to contain, I'm afraid.
I reached this conclusion when I read last year that 70% of Americans now approve of same sex marriage. I really was stunned by that. A Supreme Court ruling was one thing, but that more than 2/3 of the country would endorse it, would be varying levels of enthusiastic about it, shocked me. We are well into Romans 1: 18 - 32 times.
Most Americans will go quietly. The rest of us need to build communities quickly, thousands of post Christian Levittowns. It's interesting that most of us who have this perception think of the intermountain West as the natural locus of such a nation within a nation. Maybe some Southern states, maybe places rarely thought of, such as upstate New York, might also be in consideration.
Everyone thinks The Authorities would never let us get away with it. "Biden has the F - 17s," goes the cliche. But I think of the authorities as men like the magnificent Nashville officers who charged toward danger, Judge Newman and the state prosecutors who brought Ellick Murdock ( proper pronounciation ) down, the large number of people still in our military who are appalled by what we've become.
We still have a hardy minority who, whatever their theology may be, haven't yet bowed the knee to Baal. I'm not a John Brown, except I'm old and would be dispatched quickly by The Authorities. To riff on the Woody Allen joke about his Vietnam era draft classification as hostage material, I see myself as early fatality material. We wouldn't go after Them, but They would almost certainly come after us.
I still try to find beauty in every day life, but it is so frustrating trying to raise a normal kid in this culture.
The thing that gets me is that a lot of this can be put at the feet of Christians. I fell into the ‘it’s just a fad’ thinking and ‘dude, they’ll grow out of this when the adults in the room tell them what’s what.’ But the adults never showed up. And, worse, went along with stupid.
For me, it’s just so hard to believe that many volunteer to have dysfunctional lives because all my husband and I wanted growing up was normal. As is, a traditional nuclear family in the suburbs. A relatively quiet life w/o drama popping out of every corner. Our families were so messed up and I see the old dysfunctional patterns in the way the culture acts. It’s so sick and sad to watch. It’s truly demonic. There’s just no other word for it.
I think that with Jesus there’s always hope.
I’ve hit a point where I’m grateful all of this is happening because it just means that Jesus will be coming back sooner rather than later And that will be the final victory over all the crazy. That’s why I can’t truly despair like I want to some days. I still have to do my part for the kingdom, but there’s only so much I’m required to do here, now, today. It really doesn’t matter what came before, but how we react to these situations and the people around us now. That’s really all we can do. Just move forward one step at a time.
Goethe's "Verweile doch! du bist so schön!," on the one hand; and on the other von Hoffmannsthal's "Wie kann das sein, daß diese nahen Tage Fort sind, für immer fort, und ganz vergangen?"
It wasn't all fun for everyone. I was beaten almost every day for years in public schools, 60 years ago.
Did you ever hit back? That kind of degradation would turn me into a terrorist.
No, I wasn't strong enough. I just withdrew deep inside my own mind so it was as if it was happening far away from the real me. As much as abuse is claimed to turn victims violent and becoming in turn abusers, a whole lot, a majority, grow up to revile such behavior and abhor the thought of doing such harm.
I am sorry to learn this, Fran. May God bless you.
That is such an eloquent comment. You're a treasure, and your family is blessed in the extreme.
Sorry, I disagree with you, liberals like myself brought about this disaster far more than any Christian, and mixed up a bitter cup for all of us, unknowingly. Mea culpa. You may freely take responsibility for Dubya's torture wars, or for cheering and clapping while soulless capitalism destroys the planet unrestrained as we consume our way to living on a landfill, or for covering up child abuse in your ranks, or whatever else you feel complicit in, as a conservative Christian, but the trans phenomena comes from the deep bowels of liberal idealism and its quest for unconstrained liberty and self-definition. The mass shootings, regardless of the killer's gender issue, are also mostly the fault of American liberals, not the gun nuts. We always had plenty of guns in this country, but not so long ago, within living memory, a mass shooting was a huge deal. Not anymore. What changed in the last decade? Certainly not gun laws. No, the madness has increased, the culture is getting angrier and more violent, and by "the culture" I just mean mainstream American culture, which is predominantly liberal, let's admit it.
People like you are the ones who will likely redeem the rest of us, especially when it comes to this trans business and various other liquid modern dissolutions. I sincerely doubt that the liberal impulse will ever dissipate from mankind's heart, however, so I have no fear for it, but consequences are a bitch.
I am voting Republican in PA regardless, and tell my liberal friends about it just to see the looks on their faces. They are discombobulated. Losing some friends, gaining others. Growing less and less patient as the years wear on.
They haven't won me over and never will, despite my own failures. God will keep the faithful, faithful.
I suspect you're right.
I'm not sure you didn't misaim your comment. I agree with everything you wrote. And I loathe the Republicanism of the last forty years.
I've started to see articles about Miss Hale's odd fixation on remaining a child. The transgendered community ( how do they sort themselves out, I wonder? ) is attacking Christians for existing. One article lamented the parents' refusal to acknowledge their daughter as a man.
Who was Peter Pan.
The response of all of the rest of us should be that she was severely mentally ill. I believe this is true of all "transgenders," that, or they are demon influenced. We shouldn't hesitate to say so.
No argument here, but I was responding to the heartfelt comment by lovepeace2022, including: "The thing that gets me is that a lot of this can be put at the feet of Christians."
If not for Christians holding the line -- and all other religiously faithful -- we would be polygamous cannibals by now, probably.
This is the second time today that a commenter's remarks aimed at somebody else have landed on me. I wish Substack could do a better job with its delineations.
Liberalism became a fig leaf for libertinism, then the fig leaf blew away.
Contrary to most presumptions, the world is not a rational place. Libertarianism is the other fig leaf, for it depends on order, neglecting mystery. However, everyone living faithfully under one ancient infallible creed is similarly a difficult proposition.
I could be fairly described at this point in life as a Christian, libertarian populist whose views fall within a belief that God is infinitely wiser than I, yet it's still possible to find how He would have us live. I asked Him a long time ago to show me the truth. I have not been disappointed in that continuous process, though the revelations have been disappointing. No fig leaves. As time goes on, His wisdom is only further confirmed, and the faith verified.
DeSantis is NOT a fascist. He promotes traditional family values. He also is admirably pushing back hard on the DEI establishment in public colleges and universities. A fascist would not sign into law expanded school choice like DeSantis has recently done. The list goes on. Care to offer any examples to support your view of him?
Patrick, you addressed this to me by mistake. I have never said I thought Desantis was a fascist.
My apologies. Should have been addressed to kgasmart.
He's not a fascist and neither is Trump. As to backing wars of choice, that is up for debate.
"It is possible that some specifics in the manifesto are legitimately not the public’s business, or reasonably could spark copycat killings. If so, police should show it to independent journalists who can be trusted to report its contents with discretion."
I'm not familiar with the ethics and standards to which journalists are held, but I don't understand why the whole manifesto couldn't be released unredacted. The threat of copycat killings is already existent. If there is an argument being made within the manifesto that rings true enough with members of the Alphabet community, surely the rest of society would look in horror as an appeal is made to the manifesto to justify the killings. Let the uncensored truth come to light to do its work.
In general, I'd agree. On the other hand, there may have been certain people that she sought out specifically, and if she ranted specifically about them, even if the ranting is 100% slander, the internet is not kind - stuff like "Mr. X is a child molester who patted my head on the way to gym class one day and I didn't like it and he didn't apologize" does not make it easy for Mr. X to put in a rebuttal. And for the next 20 years, when someone starts typing Mr. X's name, the auto fill will go "Mr X. ... is a child molester".
Good point. I hadn't considered that.
Well... I live with an angry teen. We'll keep it at that.
They are already threatening copycat vengeance.
Right on. You know who really is “transphobic” and hates trans people? Andrew Sullivan and other staunchly pro-gay-marriage but anti-trans voices. I read Sullivan the other day lamenting trans madness - but the trans people were making *the identical argument* I personally heard Sullivan make countless times, with great eloquence and tears in his eyes, during the gay marriage debates of old. I remember Sullivan saying something like “why would God give me such deep love for another man if it’s a sin?” Of course that argument made no sense at the time, but at least be consistent and embrace the trans variation on it. Yet when trans people say “a loving God wouldn’t want me to stay in the wrong body” or whatever, Sullivan calls them out and attacks their ideology. There is no logic there, there truly is only hate for a different group. Me, I opposed rewriting Genesis then and I oppose rewriting Genesis now, not because I’m hateful or trans phobic but because I think God knows better than I do!
As for the Satanic element of it, see That Hideous Strength. Or Walker Percy, who in the *1980s* was already predicting that liberal elite doctor types would inevitably end up sexually abusing children. Percy, unlike Sullivan and co, actually understands logic and consequences of ideas…. More on that here:
https://gaty.substack.com/p/suffer-little-children
“ If there is one unforgettable takeaway from the book, it is Percy’s reiteration of his fellow legendary Southern Catholic writer Flannery O’Connor’s insight: apparent virtues, like tenderness or compassion, when divorced from the divine source of all virtue, inevitably lead to the death camps – or to Epstein Island. “Love is love,” after all, even for adults and their prepubescent paramours. Dostoevsky wrote that without God, everything is permitted. He was right, but only halfway so. As the children in Percy’s tale, and far too many real children today, could tell you, without God, everything – in the worst sense of that word – is mandatory.”
The little girl whom Stavrogin rapes in The Devils tells him before hanging herself, "You have killed God." The chapter, called Stavrogin's Confession, was taken out by the censors and is today usually published as an appendix (cf. Magashack's masterly Penguin translation, still widely available).
Going after Sullivan. It's a dark and lonely job, but somebody has to do it. I get that he'a friend of unser Wirt, but you are to be thanked for having crisply and accurately summarized the sophistry of his position and giving me the day off. Feser's crack is a good one, but the thing about the Mensheviks is that the Leninists just walked over them. There is an element of fear in Sullivan's newfound aversion to the rest of the alphabet, don't you think? If A, then B.
It seems the ideological descendants of the sexually radical Old Bolsheviks have discovered the ruthlessness Stalin dispatched his rivals with.
It's Sullivan, Jake.
"No place to hide" -- it's absolutely true. I'm old enough to remember the days of "let San Francisco be San Francisco and the Bible Belt be the Bible Belt." But in small towns such as Taylor, Texas, pop. 15,000, the radicalized city staff sees it as their solemn duty to spread the woke gospel and enforce a "pride parade," public opinion be damned. The libertarian "limited government and the constitution" camp just has no answer for this -- only the Rufo/Orban approach stands a chance of resisting it. See the coverage below.
WSJ ($):
https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-small-texas-city-gets-a-drag-queen-parade-for-christmas-taylor-lgbt-bureaucrats-council-politics-experts-11670600353
https://www.wsj.com/articles/texas-christmas-parade-drag-queen-values-teachers-administrators-11671059001
Google news:
https://www.google.com/search?sxsrf=APwXEdc1HO6kzHkmCN-A9ld-v1Yo-Y7iEw:1680188839034&q=taylor+texas+pride+parade&tbm=nws&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi8w5-X94P-AhVtnGoFHTbRBLIQ0pQJegQICxAB&biw=1439&bih=899&dpr=1.5
What a drag the West is becoming.
Thanks, Rod! Your impact on the collective consciousness of humankind – the zeitgeist – is significant. Glad you're around!
I have a 13-year-old who is incredibly smart but is an angry kid and uses a lot of liberal talking points - including those of the LGBT crowd - as a weapon against those who try to assert authority over her. She finds it the epitome of hypocrisy that traditional Christianity, including that which our church and her school preach, condemns homosexual behavior, because she's so brainwashed into thinking that it's all about "love is love".
I can't say too much more about the situation for the sake of privacy, but as I have been forced to come closer to some of the LGB and Trans+ stuff, it's actually very sad how many of these people feel very lost and alone, feel unloved and unloveable, and fall into the cult of the demonic LGBT+ activists (who do seem to be a small but very vocal part of the movement) who tell them "We love you and we're the only ones who can love you". When it wasn't radical enough to be homosexual, trans came out to push the culture even more out of whack, even though a lot of what the trans+ people push is diametrically opposed to what the homosexuals have been trying to tell people for the last 25 years.
The demons need to be fought against hard, but I think there are also a lot of people who need to be snatched up out of the fire in love because they ended up into something far more sinister than they bargained for.
Pray for you.
Thank you. I appreciate it greatly. The past couple of years have been exceedingly difficult.
My daughter went through similar things at the age of 16. Including SSA. I spoke on the phone with a well known Catholic therapist. He told me that girls have a much better track record of "growing out" of it. Well, he was right, she did. She is fairly liberal still and only attends church when she's at home, with us (She's 25 now). I get a lot of eye-rolls until she needs something.
I'm fasting, praying the Rosary, and trying to stay away from confrontations with her now. I have 2 younger son's, who are going through their own storms right now. It can feel overwhelming at times. I have been including Rod and his readers in my Morning Offering for a few years now and will send prayers your way also.
"I get a lot of eye-rolls until she needs something." Hilarious but it's clear she still loves you.
Greater is He that is in us than he that is in the world!
Thank you for sharing. I have a teenager as well and it’s so tough to parent these days b/c everything in our culture has been twisted inside out. You and your family will be in my prayers.
Thank you. :)
If it's any consolation, I was that kid in the 70's, but beginning at around age 16. I was an obnoxious, angry, smarter-than-the world (haha!), little leftie in training. Hated our culture and hated all religion. Now, I'm an Orthodox Christian who cringes at the memory of that little sh*t know-it-all judge. I have much to repent for. There is hope!
Trans love bombing is as much about agape love as is the lust to drop bombs on foreign peoples because we love democracy. All these enemies fighting on the same side, death and destruction. Now what force would be for this?
Ah, Lord have mercy!--give us rest from the Machine. I think we're seeing another "internal apocalypse of history" now, as Berdayev talked about it: "There is such a thing as the internal apocalypse of history. The apocalypse is not merely a revelation at the end of the world: it is also a revelation of the inner events of history, of the internal judgment upon history itself...History is a tragic conflict between the personal and the super-personal or pre-personal...Personality is active in history, within history the individual is revealed, but history is merciless in its attitude toward personality and oppresses the individual...It may be said that in fact the subject of history is not man, not even mankind, but a non-human reason...History deceives man, using man's self-seeking as a means to attain quite non-human goals. The cunning of history, against which the living personality rebels!"
I'd say that remarkable insight captures our human predicament perfectly.
“An example of the calibre of counsellors who decide if a 12-year-old comes home from school is Kenna Cook, who has access to the kids at Davis Unified [School District]. She held a BDSM group called Slaps Giving; she authored blogs: ‘How to be a better butt slut’.”
Your agent (a Pete Hamill-ism) was recently attacked in these boxes for "grotesque hyperbole" or something for warning that the State was getting ready to mutilate children against the wishes of their parents. Here's what these dimwits don't get: the public schools ARE the State. It's the Catholic doctrine of subsidiarity inverted and weaponized. The State doesn't have to be in Sacramento, it's right down the street when school board meets. If I pay taxes to keep it going, you can bet your ass it's the State operating. Of course, California State law helps them here, or can be made to.
You can bet it wasn't me accusing you of hyperbole. For before it became general, we were early victims of their grotesqueries.
If you want any chance, any chance at all, of resolving this peacefully, then Dissolution of the United States is the only solution. And the chances of that being accomplished peacefully now are very remote.
It will be hard. It will be unpleasant. The United States will lose even more of what precious little standing it has in the world. We will become a bunch of smaller, less powerful, and less wealthy, but still pretty influential nations a la France, Australia, or Japan instead of the great Collossus that the USA has been for the entirety of all of our lives.
There will be massive dislocations. There will be tremendous financial consequences that result in a lower standard of living for all of us.
But the alternative is going to be to lock and load and a tremendous bloodletting that most of you, with little to no personal experience with personal violence and its aftermath will never see coming.
We have plenty of space and resources for us to sort ourselves out and away from each other. It will happen, one way or another. Better to admit failure and work towards as soft a landing as you can.
It occurs to me to say that the old Confederacy suggests itself as one of the smaller big-S States. And Kentucky was a border state!
Kentucky, almost more than any other place at the time, epitomized the struggle of the Civil War. Both Presidents were born here. You can go to both of their birthplaces and do full tours of both in a single day. In an alternative universe, Lincoln grew up to be the president of the Confederacy and Davis led the Union.
The whole "brother vs. brother" thing actually happened here. "Orphan" brigades of volunteers fought on both sides. Kentucky was represented by a star in the national flags of both combatants, even though they didn't secede.
Yes. The Civil War history I grew up with as a boy, Bruce Catton's American Heritage book, said one went north the represent the midwest (and the railroads), the other south to become the spokesman for the planter aristocracy. Jan. 1, 1863, must have been something in Kentucky.
Flannery O'Connor: "Whenever I’m asked why Southern writers particularly have a penchant for writing about freaks, I say it is because we are still able to recognize one. To be able to recognize a freak, you have to have some conception of the whole man, and in the South the general conception of man is still, in the main, theological. That is a large statement, and it is dangerous to make it, for almost anything you say about Southern belief can be denied in the next breath with equal propriety. But approaching the subject from the standpoint of the writer, I think it is safe to say that while the South is hardly Christ-centered, it is most certainly Christ-haunted. The Southerner, who isn’t convinced of it, is very much afraid that he may have been formed in the image and likeness of God. Ghosts can be very fierce and instructive. In any case, it is when the freak can be sensed as a figure for our essential displacement that he attains some depth in literature.” – from her essay “The Grotesque In Southern Fiction”
The empty churches are Christ haunted. The rest is possessed by other things.
Lincoln led the Union
Davis the Confederacy
Or a revival of federalism, in which red states insist that they shall govern themselves.
The military will quickly rout those who will have their peashooters confiscated, who dare mount any violent insurrection against Woke. The American dream might have been liberalism's best hope but ultimately, like all worldly attempts at Eden, is ending in failure. Let's hope it's not ending in "regime normalization" of the whole rest of the world too.
The connections from the acceptance of quee*marriage to this trans destruction seems clear to me. I can recall soon after Canada allowed que**marriage two brothers stood on the steps of their courthouse- maybe Toronto and demanded to be 'married'. The head of the que**marriage movement said that these two were "mocking marriage". I knew the end was nearer than I thought.
"If you could transport yourself back in time to 2003, and tell Americans what the future was going to hold for them and their families if they embraced the LGBT movement, would they have been so eager and so naive? I appreciate gays and lesbians who speak out against the trans insanity, saying there is nothing about supporting homosexuals that requires you to support transgenders. But sorry, that ship sailed a long time ago, with transgenders on board. The logic used to sell Americans on affirming homosexuality — the logic of bodily and sexual autonomy, and personal feelings trumping any other consideration — has also been used to justify affirming transgenderism. The philosopher Edward Feser quipped the other day that watching a leading gay commentator objecting to trans extremism is like listening to the Mensheviks complain that the more extremist Bolsheviks are rushing through the door that the Mensheviks helped to open."
Over and over and over and over again.
Year after year after year after year.
I have posted the following double digit times all over but NOT ON SUBSTACK, so here goes.
There is a line between normal and abnormal. We can't pick up the line and move it over a little in order to normalize a little bit of abnormal without the rest of abnormal screaming, "What about me".
This is what we tried to do and failure was the only possible result.
Can we reverse this? Not until after the catastrophe.
The events of the past few days, and the cultural response to them, are serving to starkly illustrate the fact that Western Society has already transitioned away from the 500-year Post Reformation (Modern) cultural epoch.
As the "Modern" cultural epoch collapsed over the last 30 years, all its institutions (public and private) ceased to perform their founding functions. The news media stopped reporting news, churches moved from worshiping God and providing moral foundation to serving as advocates for secular humanism, and Government established to preserve Natural Rights worked to rescind them! Courts established to implement Justice worked to undermine same. Corporations founded to earn profits for their shareholders instead focused on entirely unrelated objectives. We have observed science and medicine advocate for products and procedures which do objective harm--in direct contravention to their stated objectives! Universities founded to seek Truth now exist to promulgate political narratives.
Since we exist in the transitional phase, we have not yet seen formation of the institutions which will support the new Digital Epoch and its over-arching themes. I expect we will soon find that integration of Artificial Intelligence into human culture will be a major feature. No doubt we will also observe humanity seeking to assume control over realms previously considered the realms of God---life, death, biological sex, all aspects of human reproduction, and global weather patterns.
This moment in history is not an ordinary one. This is a once-every-500-years historical moment. Think of this moment as being analogous to the collapse of the Roman Empire (463-ish), the Great Schism of 1053, and the spark of Protestant Reformation in 1517. Each of those historical moments set the stage for the next 500 years of Western cultural formation.
As such, those living during this transitional moment, as we are, have the opportunity to chart the course. Will we simply lament the loss of what has passed into history, or will we Boldly Go Where No Man Has Gone Before? Will people of integrity and moral vision step forward to help direct human society away from tyranny, and into a new epoch of human dignity and prosperity, which fully integrate all the new technologies and perspectives developed as the Modern era closed? Will we be able to conceive and build new institutions to serve the needs of the Digital Epoch society?
and we have out homosexuals like Douglas Murray and Spencer Klavan telling us how to "save western civilization" when, in fact, they are part of the problem of the sexual revolution that is so bedeviling us. Can sexual revolutionaries save the west? I don't think so.
https://www.crisismagazine.com/opinion/can-a-sexual-revolutionary-save-the-west
I have long noted that Conservatives have lost the ability to argue such points with moral authority. We have accepted the terms of the opposition. Conservatives have accepted the concept of "homosexual" as a unique and legitimate human condition. It isn't.
I reject the contemporary concept of "homosexual" or "gay." I view these terms as little more than excuses or rationalizations for immoral sexual activity. Never forget that the concept of a person being "gay" or "homosexual" --as a unique sort of human being, has only been a part of Western society for about the last 150 years. For the rest of human history, we were simply male and female, and our sexual urges and acts were either within the realm of morality, or outside it!
Those who claim to be "gay" or "homosexual" claim to be "born that way" yet provide no genetic evidence. Such individuals also claim that they have no control over their sexual urges. I call bovine excrement! Every human being has the ability to control his or her actions--this is called "Human Agency." Claiming to be "gay" or "homosexual" is, at core, an effort to evade responsibility for engaging in deviant sexual activity.
Yep.
“Every human being has the ability to control his or her actions--this is called "Human Agency." Claiming to be "gay" or "homosexual" is, at core, an effort to evade responsibility for engaging in deviant sexual activity.”
Sounds good on paper but that is purely opinion. I have grown up around homosexuals. Being gay is not God’s plan. But so is the current condition of all humanity since the fall.
Nobody can take seriously that homosexuality is choice. That opinion is not tethered to reality. Hedonism is a choice. There are plenty of people who love all forms of sex with humans because it is powerful to to mix orgasms with transgression. But real gay people are born that way. They deserve compassion as much as anybody else. We are all fallen, sinful creatures born into a fallen world.
Thanks for the thoughtful response. Yes, 100% my opinion, and I am not aware of any other person who agrees with me. I am on an island! Nobody in public life will discuss this issue in these terms, because to do so invites violence.
Your remarks nibble around the edges, but do not get into specifics. For this reason, for clarity, I refer to sexual acts as opposed to "being gay" or "being homosexual." An 8 year old boy who likes to play with dolls may be called "gay" (effeminate) by his classmates, but that boy has not engaged in deviant sexual acts. This is a key distinction that never gets addressed in contemporary debate.
I do not believe there is any moral issue with little boys who like to play with dolls, or express other effeminate behavior. I believe cultural sex role stereotypes are sometimes too narrow. Some boys want to play with dolls (I did!), and some girls want to drive firetrucks. Fine! Those activities are somewhat outside the cultural stereotypes, but are entirely benign.
My comments above however do NOT refer to this benign sort of non-stereotypical behavior. I refer to the commission of actual sexual acts. My moral compass is powered by Biblical Christianity. Biblical Christianity has nothing to say about boys playing with dolls, but it has a great deal to say about humans engaging in sex acts outside of marriage. Biblical Christianity has a very specific definition of marriage, a very specific purpose for marriage, and very specific purpose attached to sexual activity. The Bible nowhere describes humans as being "gay" or "homosexual," instead, as Jews, Gentiles, males, and females--sinners all! As such, I believe the contemporary "gay" and "homosexual" distinctions are essentially synthetic, meaningless, and intended to conceal an effort to normalize sexual ACTS which fall outside the boundaries of Biblical Christianity.
Well said!
Leave my G.I. Joe and He-Man alone!
I said this before, and it's crude and simplistic, but it is perfectly possible to share your views without a Biblical grounding, although I admit it's more tenuous and imperfect. Basically, it's the view that I always personally held, despite being relatively tolerant and liberal-minded, ever since I first found out about anal sex, the same way that I imagine most people first find out: on the playground, among peers, trying to learn and understand the mysteries of life.
Here is one very clear non-mystery to me: the penis does not belong in the anus, where excrement is housed. It does not belong in a girl's anus nor a boy's anus, clearly, and there is something obviously off-kilter about you if that is how you play around, at the very least.
So, I just base it on my visceral reaction combined with a child's innocent logic. I have zero business digging around in anybody's ass, unless I'm a doctor and someone is seriously ill. I concluded that a long time ago and never changed my mind.
If I'm willing to give up libertarian principles while universalizing my preferences, I can functionally arrive at the same conclusion as you.
The problem is that this point of view declares homosexuality as a deviant, disordered orientation, and can easily lead to criminalization. The logic is excruciatingly cold and simple.
Thank you for reminding us of the blunt truth that ought to be obvious. Not to demonize the whole person who might be doing this, but it seems fair to say if a person is putting their anatomy in places where it just obviously doesn't belong there is something wrong.
You know, one clear sign of totalitarianism is when you can't say the most blindingly obvious truth. You can't even claim it as an opinion. A million dollar fine was recently awarded in Brazil for offensive words spoken. Outright prison is next.
By the way, Christians are demonized regularly, they get plenty of tough words sent their way, and for some reason, those hateful, bigoted, regressive, repressive religious nazis can handle it. But when sodomites get their feelings hurt, it's considered violence. Being a real liberal, I call that shit "faggot shit." Then I get banned for pushing the limits, and probably rightly so. Then I have to apologize to everyone.
I used to hang with butch lesbians who used the word faggot as casually as inner city black people use the word nigga.
Just today, a random black guy I met and chatted with in a store eventually called me "nigga," in the most standard and friendly way. That's life on the streets in Philly, where pussies aren't invited, but we do have plenty of brotherly love for the brave.
I found out about anal sex when a Santa Monica surgeon I naively thought a friend took me in his Mercedes sports car to his remote Malibu mountain home. Is it non consensual when you have to consent for fear of being killed? What happens to kids who run away from home, at the hands of the privileged.
I was also eyed up and down by a trusted figure, I know the lecherous leer of a man possessed by his lusts, but never suffered anything more than that. Words fail, Fran.
See...that kind of a situation would have ended up with me in prison for caving his head in with a claw hammer, defecating on his corpse, placing it in his Mercedes, setting it on fire as i popped the clutch and sent it off a santa Monica cliff like a Roman candle.
Law serves as an illustration of what a society considers right and wrong.
The problem with Libertarianism is that it essentially enables anarchy and considers it morally acceptable. Anarchy eventually results in tall piles of dead bodies.
If you take time to learn about the Roman culture from which Christianity sprouted, you will learn that Roman sexuality was brutal, abusive, and 100% about Citizens asserting their authority over non-citizens--slaves, females, and aliens. For example, Romans had no issue with male sexual relations---as long as the Citizen was the penetrator...which illustrated dominance. The male on the receiving end was thus humiliated by his inferior social position.
The new sexual morality the Apostle Paul preached about created an entirely new, and entirely revolutionary sexual ethic, which served to liberate non-citizens from ongoing , sometimes fatal, sexual violence. It can easily be argued that a primary early broad appeal of the new Christian Faith during the late Roman Empire epoch was that it protected the weak from the sexual predations of the powerful.
Committed Christians in the present day continue to advocate for Biblical sexual ethics precisely because we understand what happens in its absence.
Libertarian views don't have to be libertine. What you describe is the end of a tyrannical empire sunk into degradation, a form of slavery to abnormal appetites, against nature. There's a reason that sexual abuses by soldiers have to be tightly controlled in theatres of war, for the evil is so grave that it attracts every moral deformation. In addition, a devolution to totalitarian rule is not palliative, but leads to less individual conscience. Yet no one is sincerely converted to any cause at the point of a sword, and thus accountability to the people is abolished and order can only be enforced by draconian policies that undermine the consent of the governed. The best policy for good order in this world is populism, not elite oligarchy, in which information is freely available without control by allowable propaganda, and open discussions are won through honest evaluation by an informed population. Right now we have an elite intent on de facto abolition of public morality through indoctrinating the young, as per Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals, in order to rule over people bereft of any ability to challenge their tyranny. Recall that the word tyrant means a person accountable to nothing other than self. By the way, Alinsky once visited our Reservation and urged us to forget about older folks, and concentrate on getting hold of the children and indoctrinating them. I see all these Tik Tok videos by educators bragging that they are doing just that. I am happy to say that our people's activists were not on Alinsky's wavelength, as recorded in archival film, even members of AIM. His co-option failed there.
Yes. Homosexuality is an action not a person.
Yep
A broken design in a broken world. All of us: broken.
I agree. What a deceiving propagandistic euphemism "gay" is. As Augustine observed evil has no capacity to create, it can only corrupt the good.
Fran - are you saying gay people are evil?
And please explain the “good” that this evil corrupts? Who are the good that you contrast with the evil?
Good and evil run through every heart. It's up to you if you harden your heart to continue to decide for evil. It's not like I don't know the process, from experience. And having made a decision to do wrong that has some pleasures associated, I know there is every incentive to self-deception. I'm not sure exactly what older homosexuals preying on homeless minors is, but grooming doesn't quite capture it. I do know that these individuals had strong drives that evidently through practice overcame scruples if any. I can't say they were entirely bad, but a certain perspective on the receiving end makes it difficult to see them as mostly good. Maybe that respected surgeon with the lucrative practice did a lot of good at the hospital where he made the rounds before anally raping me at his expensive and remote Malibu home poolside, but I didn't see that side of him. Perhaps as some believe, good deeds allow a certain exemption for extraordinary individuals' appetites.
Older homosexuals preying on homeless minors is just plain evil and they should be strung up. This happened to a dear friend of mine. A sweet kid who was born into a no-win situation of insanity and addiction. He just needed parents who loved him. Instead of that he got a pit of queer vipers.
BTW, I am making a comment others make in situations like these, but I do it in sincerity (as do most people I am sure) - I am sorry you had to endure that. What a crappy person that guy was.
Lessons learned for me to report through all the gaslighting
Homosexual acts are sinful within the Christian sexual ethic. Sin is generally equated with Evil.
We are not sinners because we sin. We sin because we are sinners.
Isolating another person’s sin being worse than one’s own condition is self-righteous. I am always wary of those who point to other’s evil. There is enough to go around.
Yours is certainly not a new or unique argument, nor will be my reply.
I understand you have sympathy for those who live with same sex attraction. It is good to have such sympathy. And I agree we are all sinners. If we are to love our neighbors however, we are to help them, in Christian love, to find the narrow, straight path, not encourage or enable their sinful acts. Similarly, I am accountable for my own acts, and pray my Christian brothers and sisters will help me along the way, guiding me toward the straight path when I am lost.
That is true about Murray. But Protestantism is not to be blamed even if Catholics try to deceive themselves.
BBC journalist Hannah Barnes just released an excellent book about the scandal that plagued, and shuttered, the Tavistock clinic, England's only gender clinic for children. The well-researched book shows how the clinicians at Tavistock put children as young as nine on puberty blockers and cross-hormones without knowing the repercussions. Why? Because there was no data that supported what they were doing. They were, in effect, experimenting on kids.
Eventually, Tavistock administrators decided to review their own files to determine the results of their treatment regimens. They learned that their treatment either resulted in no change to their patients, or the treatment had a negative effect. Shockingly, the clinic decided to ignore its own findings and continue the treatment regimen.
Long story short, the clinic has been shuddered by the British government and lawsuits have been filed. One legal expert estimated there could be an avalanche of 1,000 lawsuits coming from parents and now-grown-up patients who state that they were deceived and sold something that never should have been recommended to them.
The U.K., Sweden, Norway, and Finland are backing away from the aggressive manner in which they treat kids in their gender clinics. In the U.S.? Activists are pushing to lower standards even further, which is rather astounding when the standards are barely existent to begin with. Children with gender dysphoria need medical care. They need the best medical care, in fact. But they don't receive it because our activist class pushes for unsafe and experimental medical practices, and then they call anyone a "transphobe" for trying to stop the harm and experimentation inflicted upon these troubled kids.
My wife and I are currently watching a Quebecois policier which is centered around the horrors that haunt a town with an old indigenous school at the top of a hill. Fair enough. You think in 50 years we'll be watching shows with the grisly record of gender-affirming clinics coming back to haunt the perpetrators? Me neither.
Three Pines?
Yep.