R.C. Sproul’s Roman Catholicism Series

As of this post, there is an audio series by R.C. Sproul on Roman Catholicism and it is being given away.

http://www.ligonier.org/store/roman-catholicism-download-and-stream/?mobile=off

It’s a very good starting point for any Protestant who doesn’t know much about the RCC, or who doesn’t understand what the fuss between us is all about.

Let me point out that the series is NOT about how the RCC is wrong, but simply about key RCC doctrines and their developments over the centuries. Sproul takes pains to be not only fair, but accurate. He often quotes papal encyclicals, sometimes tamps out Protestant reactionary fires, and generally draws the map. I know there are several (or perhaps many) Roman Catholic readers of my blog. I’d be interested to know their thoughts.

My endorsement is worth every penny you paid for it; which is convenient because it matches the series’ price.

Speaking of Which: Donald Rumsfeld

I just finished watching The Unknown Known, a documentary about Donald Rumfeld. Particularly ,it is concerned with his involvement with the war in Iraq.

It cannot be missed that I, the viewer, am supposed to be struck by the irony of Rumsfeld’s statements. Several times Rumsfeld finishes saying something, and the camera just sits there on his face, as if waiting for realization to dawn upon him that he’s said something either incredibly foolish or contradictory to an earlier explanation. In my opinion, the documentarist failed. Before I watched the film I didn’t like or agree with Rumsfeld, but afterwards I did.

If I were to pinpoint the moment, it was when Rumsfeld explains that the goal of invading Iraq was to redraw the map of the Middle East. The documentarists visually oblige his wishes by showing a map of the Middle east blowing apart; country from country, and sect from sect. It’s supposed to look very daunting, but it must be said that if, in fact, that was the plan then it is proceeding according to pace and that sectarian violence in the Middle East could be beneficial to the US in two ways.

1. They’re now fighting each other.
2. European countries are no longer getting national defense and international influence at a deep discount. They could have joined us in subjugating the Middle East, but instead they nagged us about petty indiscretions in a time and place of war. Together, at our side, the US and Europe could have crushed all hope of a caliphate, but they didn’t and now the Middle East is at their doorstep and with the caliphate on its mind. This will force the European communities’ hands to mount their own defense instead hanging back and haranguing the US for “doing it wrong”

How many more steps ahead of us are guys like Rumsfeld, and why in the world am I allowed to vote?

How the Clowns Won the West

Scott Adams agrees with my conclusion that Trump is a clown.

Like many of you, I have been entertained by the unstoppable clown car that is Donald Trump. On the surface, and several layers deep as well, Trump appears to be a narcissistic blow-hard with inadequate credentials to lead a country.

The only problem with my analysis is that there is an eerie consistency to his success so far. Is there a method to it? Is there some sort of system at work under the hood?

Probably yes.

One thing to keep in mind while watching that hilarious scene in Blazing Saddles is that it is historical. Yes, it’s satirized, but white Europeans really did conquer America from American Indians, and they did it with silly promises which were very often accepted by the Indians…promptly followed up by a lot of shooting. As I said in a comment of that post:

GOV’s stated plan is to push the red man back with toys (i.e.: for free), but in reality the plan must be to use men with guns to hold the indians to the “trade”. Trump’s plan is to have Mexico pay to build a wall (i.e.: for free), but really it’s going to take men with guns to take back our land/jobs from illegal aliens.

Here’s Adams on Trump’s idea that Mexico will pay for a wall between our border:

Trump also said he thinks Mexico should pay for the fence, which made most people scoff. But if your neighbor’s pit bull keeps escaping and eating your rosebushes, you tell the neighbor to pay for his own fence or you will shoot his dog next time you see it. Telling a neighbor to build his own wall for your benefit is not crazy talk. And I actually think Trump could pull it off.

Perhaps my detractors problem is a failure to fully appreciate the clown geniuses of Mel Brooks and Harvey Korman. They didn’t actually expect the audience to believe white men were idiots, or that toys won the West. They were telling jokes about violence.

Conserving Grammatical Orphans

Over the last several weeks, Vox Day has been writing on his blog about whether to engage SJWs with rhetorical (emotional[1]) arguments or dialectic (logical[1]); depending on which they can either understand, or maneuver around. He also talks about it in his book SJWs Always Lie[2]. It’s a fair point, but–as I’ll get into in my review–I’m not convinced attacking SJWs is usually worth the effort. What I want to talk about is why Vox (or anyone) finds it so much more useful to take a rhetorical tack against others.

There is this philosophy of education called Trivium. Homeschoolers will probably be familiar as it is heavily (and rightly) emphasized in homeschool social circles. The Trivium supposes that there are three methods of transferring knowledge, and not just knowledge but thinking capabilities. It is sometimes represented as a three-spoked wheel, but for our purposes I will prefer a triangle with three strata.

The flat bottom of the triangle represents grammar; which is the rules and data and sheer brute learning; often by memorization. You can think of this as counting: You teach the child 1, 2, 3, etc.

The middle tier is logic. At this level the student learns to take rote rules and prove other rules. Often those proven rules have been memorized as well, but at this mid-level of knowledge and thinking they can figure out why the rules were made, and how they enforce each other. You can think of this as addition, multiplication, and simple algebra built upon counting. 5+4=9 because 5+one, two, three, four fingers is nine fingers. You get the idea.

The pointy top tier of the Trivium triangle is rhetoric, and if is concerned with using the knowledge and thinking of the grammar and logic tiers to build new arguments and alternative ideas to explain concepts to others, or to build new models of explanation to replace old ideas. It’s at this level where Pythagoras was operating when he came up with his famous theorem.

If there is anything of which we can say it is good that Jerusalem took it from Athens, the basic idea of the Trivium is one of those good things because it is essential, and, I believe, unavoidable for any learner.

The reason dialectic fails against SJWs (Honestly, it fails against more than they) is because the foundation of grammar has been obliterated from the liberal arts. This is almost always what is being talked about when we blame some nonsense on deconstructionists, or “Cultural Marxists”[3].

As an example: When considering homosexual marriage, the grammar is

1. Homosexuality is unnatural
2. Marriage is a commitment between a man and a woman which is centered on exclusive sex and procreation.

From there, one can calculate the logic that children aren’t produced by homosexual unions, homosexual unions are decidedly non-commital in practice, homosexuals are the emotional result of pederasty…there are a lot of logical arguments for the grammar against homosexual marriage.

But if, as Western society has done, we forbid the foundational layer of the pyramid that is grammar, and if, as we have also done, pervert the grammar to say that marriage is the death throes of lust, then our calculus at the rhetorical stage is all jacked up. We will make confused and irrational arguments, and we will believe them because thinking them through destroys what little foundation we have left; however perverted those foundations are. We will want to conserve them. It’s a fact of human nature that not even SJWs and other avowed liberals can elude.

What Vox is saying is to pile up the rhetoric; which inverts the pyramid. As it is already on an eroded and crumbly basis the inversion is too much strain for the untrained mind (and modern minds are almost all untrained) to bear. It has to either flee, or surrender it’s foundational teachings altogether.

This is why the liberal arts programs are so useless when–in truth–properly formed liberal arts are indispensable. In these times that means it is necessary to form them outside of state schools.

[1] Using Vox’s basic and easy-to-understand definitions.

[2] I bought it shortly after release, and I’ll write a review soon.

[3] Here I don’t wan’t to argue about whether or not those terms are accurate descriptors, but make clear the sort of knowledge that has been purposefully removed, and who is associated with those terms.

The Face of Stupidity

Apparently Trump called Carly Fiorina’s face unvotable. In retort, Fiorina made an ad addressing it, and indirectly Trump. It is stupid.

In the voiceover she’s talking about her own face, but shows faces of random women; as if to say that she is but one of many old and ugly women and here are some others. She goes on to say that her face and their faces are the faces of “leadership” in various sectors of society, up-to-and-including religion.

Let us recognize that is true, and let us also recognize that every sector of society is being led into the toilet.

Let us Christians also recognize that leadership of women in our churches is against Scripture, but that it doesn’t stop Fiorina.

What drew this to my attention as worthy of a post was how various periodicals and websites touted this ad as “a perfect comeback” to Trump’s comment. Where is the comeback? Fiorina is proud of her 61 year old wrinkly face. Why? Is there any face that recommends itself as presidential, or even worthy of pride? No, and that’s not the point of Fiorina’s Faces ad anyways. Her point is that a woman should be president because…just because.

I also notice Donald Trump suffers loads of remarks about his hair. None of those sites defend him, and–more importantly–he takes it in stride. I don’t think we’ll be seeing a Trump ad about having presidential hair. If we do, it will be poking fun at Fiorina for being a scolding twerp.

Free-Agent Women are Bad for Team You

I saw this video linked on a couple sporting news websites as evidence that NFL Fan Fights season has kicked-off. Language warning for the faint.

Did you see what I did? Because what I saw was:

1. A Mexican woman allowed to run her mouth while her men looked on, helpless. Watch their expressions. They are embarrassed, but conflicted because–unlike white people–they’ve been taught to stick by their own kind even when she’s stupid, endangering others, and wasting hundreds (or possibly thousands) of dollars in tickets and parking.
2. More egregiously: A white woman repeatedly put her hand over her man’s mouth, and he tolerating mommy’s physical censorship. Whatever that fat Mexican chick did to the white guy was nothing in comparison to the disrespect his own woman has for him.

I wonder if he knows that, in her mind, contract negotiations are never over and every day is the right day to disrespect him if she can get her way.

Inverted Propaganda of Perverted Reality

Commenter GK Chesterton wrote:

Great story but…ugh. Pizza delivery?

I myself am surprised at the location in which I have found myself. Somewhere around here I am sure I have a tract given to me by feminists. In it, are pictures of male devils (Patriarci, perhaps) leading around women in chains, whoring them out, and then promptly confiscating the funds into their own demonic treasuries.

If that nonsense were the truth, then Patriarchy would still be in force. It is in fact the exact opposite in every way. Women who are let to run around unattached whore themselves out at the expense of their fathers.

Last night (close to midnight) I made a delivery to an apartment of two attractive women and their very fat male friend. One of the women was lying sprawled on the front porch. It was a low porch, directly adjacent to the parking lot and the headlights of my vehicle shone directly between her spread legs and up her gym shorts; illuminating the interior. She did not mind. I cannot say if light shone out her belly button; as her shirt was actually performing its function…and more.

They were laughing, and the supine woman did not close her legs as I approached. Addressing the vertical woman I said, “Howdy. It’s $12.47.” The one on the ground shot her arms up at me for the pizza. Written on her shirt in neat bold marker was the word “TIT”. The word was big enough to cover the two under it, and there were many other scribblings that I did not read because I was distracted by the other “TIT” written in red marker on her cheek.

I handed the pie to the lying girl as the porcine man got out money. The standing woman took a picture of her friend holding up the pizza as I loomed over the latter, waiting for the fat guy’s cash.

Yet, for some reason, adults (I mean adults who live in the real world and not college world) I know are mystified, sad, and even snide about my choices. That is not a reference to commenter GKC, but to those around me in physical space.

The point is: Don’t believe the brochure. Patriarchy, in relationship to its daughters, is more about standing guard and sacrifice and not much about pleasure and riches.

What’s Open After Midnight?

Tonight I delivered pizza to a house where the owners were throwing a small party; four guys and two cute gals. Now, 40 swiftly approaches for me and so I think almost all college girls are cute, but I gather that the four men did, too; else I doubt they would have invited them. One girl was almost surely not of legal age to drink alcohol, but I watched her take two swigs from a beer bottle as I completed the exchange.

And that, my friends, is why I moved my family to a new town rather than send my daughter away to college.

Shortly after I had began my job, I explained such reasoning to my inquisitive young coworkers, and (perhaps to your astonishment) they agreed and accepted it as good. Once we had a conversation about the fact that–while I don’t have a curfew for my children–I do expect to know where they are, and they should expect me to show up at any time. A young half-white half-black woman made the remark, “Ain’t nothing open after midnight but legs.” Such a great quip.

Sabbaths

Months back, Moose and I had an exchange about what it means to keep the sabbath. Long story short: I have been convinced that he was right[1]. In June I basically quit my job when I told them that I could no longer be gone on Sundays. Since then, I have turned down tens of thousands of dollars (to me) in projects. Sometimes I wonder if I’ve lost my mind.

To pay the bills I took up that ol’ Dave Ramsey advice and started delivering pizzas. My coworkers are mostly college students, and that’s provided me with some opportunities; not the least of which is  all the humble-pie I can eat. Enough said about that. The point of this post is to get that out of the way so I can share some of the stories I’ve collected in the trenches.

[1] Though I do believe that Sunday is the day to pick.

The War Conservatives Never Knew They Lost

I’ve been trying to think of a different way to get my friend to understand at least some of the reasons that those he believes should be conservative allies in fact are not. Perhaps this one will do the trick.

Let’s assume–for the sake of argument–that Conservatives have been fighting a war for The Culture against Liberals. Let’s also recognize that it’s becoming more accepted as fact that Liberals won.

I think that’s wrong. From my perspective: It would be more true to say that those we call Liberals were fighting to occupy Conservatism, and that’s what they won. They didn’t take over the whole culture, but rather took over what is considered Conservative. This is discombobulating because Conservatives have been told that they are fighting for The Culture overall, and so there’s a lot of effort to win external victories; victories “out there”. Meanwhile; the base was sapped…infiltrated…hacked.