Taking Electrons Captive in Babylon

(CC: I meant to publish this tomorrow, but–what the heck–it’s out there now.)

A month ago Moose Norseman and I had a brief back and forth in the comments of his post It’s Less Difficult Than You Think on the merits of YouTube and other recent technological innovations. I wrote, “YouTube is the best education platform ever invented after the television. It can and is misused, but it really is phenomenal.” I think this is undeniable. Like all tools: It is good when used for good and bad when used for evil[1].

It would be good if we all had around us in the flesh Christian mentors on every topic from automotive repair to Zoroastrianism’s influence on early Christianity. But we don’t. By all means, I encourage everyone and myself to build those relationships, but in the meantime God has blessed us with an incredibly fertile landscape of powerful education technology. We Christians should husband it into gardens of Christ’s glory and put it and ourselves to service for others.

⁴ “Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: ⁵ Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. ⁶ Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. ⁷ But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.

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[1]Which is not the same thing as being neutral. Nothing is neutral. Everything evil is a corruption of something that should be good.

 

 

Blinded by Rose-Colored Glasses

The lives of Jacob and Leah and Rachel are fascinating because we are blinded by Courtly Love when we read their story.[1]

Leah is not pretty, but she is a virtuous wife. She uses everything her power to get Jacob’s attention, and to serve him. She produced the line of priests in Levi and the line of kings in Judah, through which came the Christ. She is jealous of Jacob and his affections even though she wis hated by Jacob. There is no mention of Leah causing Jacob any grief, or reproaching him for anything. Leah just wants to be pleasing to Jacob and the Lord.

Rachel is beautiful. That is her one virtue. Otherwise: Rachel is a complainer and will harass Jacob. She steals her father’s false idols and then hides them under her vagina while feigning menstruation. She’s fickle and lets her father marry Leah to her betrothed (under subterfuge) without complaint, and is fine for Leah to sleep with Jacob right up until Leah is honored above her because of Leah’s children. Rachel wants children not so that Jacob will love her, but because she is jealous of her sister (that was probably the first time in her life for that experience) AND she blames Jacob for her barrenness.

The difference in character is stark when you compare what Leah and Rachel uttered when they named their children. Leah is joyful, and she praises Jacob and the Lord. Rachel complains and loves herself. The exception to Rachel’s pattern of selfishness is Joseph, who goes on to save the people of Israel.

The Sons of Leah (including through the servant Zilpah)

• Reuben: “Because the Lord has looked upon my affliction; for now my husband will love me.”
• Simeon: “Because the Lord has heard that I am hated, he has given me this son also.”
• Levi: “Now this time my husband will be attached to me, because I have borne him three sons.”
• Judah: “This time I will praise the Lord.”
• Gad: “Good fortune has come!”
• Asher: “Happy am I! For women have called me happy.”
• Issachar: “God has given me my wages because I gave my servant to my husband.”
• Zebulun: “God has endowed me with a good endowment; now my husband will honor me, because I have borne him six sons.”

The Sons of Rachel (including through the servant Bilhah)

• Dan: “God has judged me, and has also heard my voice and given me a son.”
• Naphtali: “With mighty wrestlings I have wrestled with my sister and have prevailed.”
• Joseph: “God has taken away my reproach.”
• Ben-oni: “son of my sorrow”, or “son of my strength”. [2]

If you read about Jacob Rachel and Leah and see an aspirational love story: I pity you.

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[1]Repurposed from a comment at Dalrock’s.

[2] Jacob changes it to Benjamin: “son of the right hand”.

A Circumstance Beyond Our Control, Oh Oh Oh Oh

There is a significant slave population in the United States today. We call them prisoners. The difference of a (pre-modern) slave from a (modern) prisoner, is that prisoners are not much good to anyone at all; including themselves. Some readers might be inclined to equivocate and draw lines between prisoners and slaves to separate them. The reality is that a prisoners are a subset of slaves. All the descriptors of slavery apply to prisoners.

Because I’m not insane, I’m in favor of prisons and jails. Making slaves of criminals (for a time)–i.e., to put them under the legal authority of another more competent, temperate, and law-abiding person to control them–is a superior choice over the alternatives to either execute all criminals or allow them to wander around. It would be superior still to control them to good purposes.

There are also other kinds of slaves, in other institutions, and with varying degrees of personal freedom and worth: juvenile delinquents, the elderly in nursing homes and hospices, those under power of attorney, military personnel, and the mentally ill.

Just as with my contemplation on what fatherhood is (especially from the Biblical perspective): Once I recognized with horror that I was actually in favor of slavery[1] …all grounds for liberalism within my mind were harrowed. An add-on effect is that I understood slavery in the Bible better. It was no longer an unconsidered evil tolerated by benighted desert nomads.

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[1] Under certain circumstances and for certain people and only for certain periods of time.

CoE III: The Opposite of Liberal was a Dirty Word to Me

Conservative is what I used to call myself, and then again later. But conservative isn’t the opposite of liberal. It’s just a descriptor of the kind of liberal who is sentimental and unprincipled.

Between those times “Libertarian” seemed like a good thing. It wasn’t. Potheads, usurers, sodomites, and a boatload of layabouts make terrible company, and worse government. For awhile now I’ve politically been ____________. “Something the opposite of Liberal.”

I’m not the only one. Do you ever wonder why many who are against Post-Modernism, Feminism, Cultural Marxism, Progressivism, Perversion, etc. call themselves and others who defiantly speak the truth: Conservatives, Traditionalists, Reactionaries, Revolutionaries, Barbarians, Deplorables, and even Shitlords?

Ever wonder why, at just the moment they should coalesce into a group, they instead disperse into atomized bits of powerless snark?

Because they hate the opposite of Liberal, the word itself. That word is authoritarian. Nasty thing! We hates it, my precccccioussss!

Well, Cane: Get over it, cupcake.

Bravely Ducking-Out

Last week I downloaded Brave and surfed around with it for a bit. It gave me trouble on some websites, so I returned to Google Chrome after a few hours of use. On my iPhone I used ChromeOS because it is faster than Safari, and better handles multiple tabs.

Yesterday I got a message from Google as I researched the facts around the Chasity Dawn Carey case. I wanted to see how popular a name is Chasity. It looked to me as if either her parents, the administrator was who filled out Chasity’s birth certificate, were morons. But perhaps chasity was a legitimate thing, and not a misspelled chastity. I typed “chasity” into Chrome for iOS on my iPhone, and this is what I received:

Note the picture which accompanies Wikipedia’s definition. I could not better define our society’s vision of chastity: A virtuous moral standard where technology is used and weaponized to lock up and humiliate men’s sexuality. After I took the screenshot, I typed in “chastity”, spelled correctly, and got this back:

The penis cage was gone, but so was the moral definition! In its place was a nothing-but-the-material definition of chastity; as if chastity correctly understood is merely one choice among many, and pretty lame to boot. Gone were the words about virtue and morals.

The thing making choices here isn’t me: It’s the search engine, Google, who also makes the Chrome browser. This is what Google thinks we should get: Either a message that, morally, chastity is best used to shame men, and that otherwise chastity is an outdated mechanic for…not much of anything.

I hadn’t yet downloaded Brave for iOS so I did; right after the above screenshot of Chrome for iOS. This is what I got when I typed “chasity” (intentionally misspelled) into Brave AFTER I changed the default search engine to duckduckgo:

Well, who do you elbow and did you see that? DuckDuckGo picked a short, positive definition for chastity as its default. Then I went straight-up crazy and goosed them for a response to “chastity” itself:

It’s the same text from Wikipedia as was returned when I searched for chasity in Google, but the picture is different. In fact (props to Wikipedia) that 15thC painting in the DDG results is from their article on chastity. Which means that the Google search engine isn’t simply regurgitating Wikipedia. Compare the format in the first screenshot and the last. Google is copying Wikipedia’s entry, but then substituting what it thinks is a better representation of chastity: a penis cage.

Now, let’s reflect on the power and authority Google wields in the world, and wonder how often our children will Google routine information.

I know nothing about the religion or politics the folks at DuckDuckGo, but they’re all right with me so far.

 

Choose the Battlefield Wisely

The answer–the right warfare against Antifa, Black Lives Matter, Feminists, Democrats–is to put Christ first. The wrong answer is to put anything else first. I said that these groups are against:

1. Christians
2. Whites
3. Men
4. America (in combination of 1-3)

and that is true. But there are several reasons not to put energy into pro-white movements, or even pro-male movements. The first and most important reason is that Christ is king and lord of all. We are to serve Him in all things we do, and (amazingly, I think) Christ has provided ways for us to serve Him first in all things we do.

The second reason is that we should never let the enemy choose the terrain of the battles; especially when our combatants are so outnumbered. That is when choice of terrain is most vital for victory. So we rightly should counter invasions on whiteness or manhood with counterattacks from Christ; not because we don’t care about whites or men, but because we need to attack from a position of strength. Nothing is stronger than Christ, whose victory is assured. Not only that, but they neither believe nor understand their own motivations and their own spiritual state–or even nature. This makes an attack launched from a Christ-centered force powerful because it is their weak spot.

So what does this look like in practice? That means to put Christians first for Christian reasons. This is something we have taken for granted. The strength of early America wasn’t “Americanism”. The goodness and truth of the founding documents, to the extent that they are good and true,  don’t make appeal to their own goodness, but to the goodness of God and His natural order. The rights of freedom of speech[1], association, etc. are not predicated on either blood or soil, but on the belief that they are God-given.

So, for example: We should counter pagan attacks on Hobby Lobby, Chick-Fil-A, Catholic hospitals, bakers, and florists not on the defensive grounds of freedom of speech, nor freedom of association, nor freedom of religion, nor the whiteness of the staff; but on the counter-offensive terms that they are brothers and sisters in Christ who are upholding the God-ordained natural order. We don’t “pray those poor people are ok” (though we do pray for them), we make it our business to help them be victorious even at our own cost, and that we offer up those sacrifices for Christ’s glory. We do not offer them for freedom of speech or even religion.

This doesn’t mean we “forget” that we are American, our political traditions, or forget our ethnicity. It means we put them into submission into their rightful place, and by so doing make them worthy. It means we volunteer to suffer in the earthly and unworthy things–whether it is money, glory, status, or even blood–as Christ volunteered to suffer all those things for us so that we could inherit eternal riches and glory, and that we do so for the same reasons.

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[1] I do believe these freedoms are real, God-given, and should be protected by a just and wise government. Perhaps I’ll write about that in another post.

Stop Being Distracted

Taken (only slightly edited) from several comments on Dalrock’s post, “First They Came for the Bald Men”.

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The movement of which Antifa, commies, Democrats, etc. all belong isn’t anymore essentially Left than its opponents are Nazis. The essence of the movement to which these groups belong–what they have in common–is a hatred of three things:

1) Christianity
2) Men
3) Whites

The order of hatred depends on with which faction of the movement one deals, but the three are essential. For example: Feminism hates men first, then Christianity, then whites. Black Lives Matter orders it Whites, Christianity, then men, I think. Sometimes, as in the case of Antifa, more than one plank is of equal weight. Antifa hates America as a whole because it recognizes that America is fundamentally a work of white Christian men.

It’s not autonomous vs. totalitarian, nor is it globalists vs. nationalists, nor is it politically correct speech vs. free speech. They are not FOR anything in particular. They exist to be AGAINST things. Specifically, they are against

1) Christianity
2) Men
3) Whites

Some are fine–and even for–capitalism in China, India, wherever–as long as the benefits are not for Christian white men. They love to welcome Muslim mid-easterners, but the Christian mid-easterners are served right to be killed and exiled. There is no rhyme or reason to these affiliated groups except what they are against. Leftism has nothing to do with this movement.

They don’t know or care what Left means.
They don’t know or care what Nazi means.
They don’t know or care what Globalism means.
They don’t know or care what Right means.
They don’t know or care what Fascist means.
They don’t know or care what Nationalism means.
They don’t know or care what Communist means.

The words, to them, contain no meaning whatsoever. Those things are just words that dead white oppressors made up to separate the real people of color from each other and their belongings. They appropriate and use these terms as various forms of subversive weaponry: dog whistles, cloaks, and diversions.

Most people, people who describe themselves as Conservative, or even merely “normal” just don’t accept what they actually see. And the self-styled Conservative press are trained to look for ideological underpinnings and try to perceive the “end game”. There aren’t any. It’s just envy and hatred. The average American refuses to believe that and so they theorize imaginary ideologies and end games for BLM, Antifa, Feminists, and so forth.

Envy and hate aren’t ideological points. They are of the spiritual realm. It’s a spiritual war; not an ideological war, nor an ethnic war.

The Vista’s End

It’s quite possible that the time is coming when we’ll all get subsistence checks from the gov’t.

The radical notion that governments should hand out free money to everyone – rich and poor, those who work and those who don’t – is slowly but surely gaining ground in Europe. Yes, you read that right: a guaranteed monthly living allowance, no strings attached.

[…]

Called “universal income” by some, “universal basic income” or just “basic income” by others, the idea has been floated in various guises since at least the mid-19th century. After decades on the fringes of intellectual debate, it became more mainstream in 2016, with Switzerland holding a referendum – and overwhelmingly rejecting – a proposed basic income of around $2,500 per month.

[…]

WHY THE MOUNTING INTEREST?

In a word, robots. With automated systems and machines increasingly replacing human workers…

Charles Murray is going around saying the same thing. If you follow the link it will take you to the 33 minute mark of a video featuring Charles Murray on Conversations with Bill Kristol.[1] If you’re interested, he has a whole book (which I have not read) on the subject called In Our Hands: A Plan to Replace the Welfare State. Call me be a rubic Flyover American, but Universal Basic Income (UBI) sounds like welfare to me. Automation (robots) is a red herring, though. UBI is just an incarnation of a sluggard’s fantasy to eat but not work.

⁶ Now we command you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from any brother who is walking in idleness and not in accord with the tradition that you received from us. ⁷ For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us, because we were not idle when we were with you, ⁸ nor did we eat anyone’s bread without paying for it, but with toil and labor we worked night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you. ⁹ It was not because we do not have that right, but to give you in ourselves an example to imitate. ¹⁰ For even when we were with you, we would give you this command: If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat. ¹¹ For we hear that some among you walk in idleness, not busy at work, but busybodies. ¹² Now such persons we command and encourage in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living.

UBI is a social science disaster in the making, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t coming at us. Then the question will be how to respond to it. Fighting it won’t be in our hands, and will be a waste of time due to its popularity. So perhaps we fathers and husbands ought to start thinking now about how to reform such chaos into a benefit.

My theory is that a UBI would, fundamentally, individuate us further; wives from husbands, children from parents, etc. If we understand that, then we can understand why conservatives/libertarians who oppose welfare on a segregated basis (age, income, handicap, etc.) could be won-over by a comprehensive form of welfare. That means that the way for the average man to fight this is to live and teach cooperation of family members (and perhaps friends) under his leadership. The family which can pool each constituent’s UBI will win.

Until recent human history this was common practice: The family produced together and therefore prospered together, or didn’t. The wealthy still practice it even though children living at home and sharing their profits with the whole family  is anathema to the “American Way of Life”. The “go west young man” attitude of Americans in a land of seemingly endless vistas taught us to ignore this wisdom. Well, we found the vista’s end. We can either return to the ancient wisdom, or spiral into further hellishness of poverty, OoW childbirth, abortion, and disease.

Perhaps such a return seems improbable because of social pressures for kids to move out, and the selfish motivations of the human hearts within those kids. You ought to prepare yourself for that, but I don’t believe it’s hopeless. For one thing we can point to those wealthy families who practice this. We can also point to stories in the entertainment media which, although often the enemies of capable parents, are ultimately servants of eternal story arcs and when they forget themselves, portray family cooperation under a head in a positive light. If only there was a name for such an arrangement…

[1] It’s possible that the name Bill Kristol might send some of my readers right over the edge of reason. (The chances I take!) Those of you who manage to keep yourself righted could do worse than to watch or listen to BK’s Conversations. I often don’t agree with the pundits, but it is an excellent chance to figure out what I think on matters. For example: If you watch the whole video you can hear Murray lament American men’s performance, but never suggest that women have a role to play. For the reading inclined there is a transcript.

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.

“The Difference between Gold and Pigs”, or “Mennonites in the Mist”

Some people are laboring under the delusion that there exists a continuum upon which modesty slides; that on one end there is attractiveness, and on the other end there is immodesty, and on the other end there is unattractiveness, and on the other end there is gaudiness… If you have figured out that we have too many ends for one continuum, then keep reading this post.

Modesty is first and foremost about holiness. Holiness is about keeping things separate that do not belong together, and keeping things together that do; to set aside for a particular purpose.

Immodesty isn’t about being “too attractive”. Bare breasts aren’t immodest because men find them alluring. Bare breasts are immodest because they don’t belong to anyone but the owner and her husband; who are one flesh. Don’t show what cannot be shared, and what you do show be prepared to lose. Likewise, modesty isn’t about being “not too attractive”. A nude fat guy with seeping wounds all over his body is not modest either; no matter how unattractive he is.

Modesty is on its own continuum, and attractiveness on its. They are separate things, and the second is much more subjective than the first in the eyes of those on this side of the dark glass. The author of Proverbs 11 said it this way:

Like a gold ring in a pig’s snout
    is a beautiful woman without discretion.

Neither diminishes or even modifies the other. Gold is worth its weight whether it adorns a pig or a king, and a pig is an unclean beast no matter how much gold it drags through the mud. It only seems like the pig and the gold are modifying each other if we walk by sight rather than by faith. The faithful one distinguishes (again the idea of setting aside; making discrete) To the pure all things are pure: pigs, breasts, gold…everything. Even Mennonites!

Mom in a Shoe linked to some clothes

that others[1] labelled “uncool”, “unattractive”, “weird”, and so forth. Whatever else one may say about them: One must admit that Mennonite women dress as their fathers chose, and not as their own natures tempted them. If you cannot say one other good thing about them, then you can say–must say–that they are obedient in their dress, even if nothing else. If modesty is of a kind with set apart, and separate, and pure, and obedient, then the dress of Mennonite women should be seen as–at the very least–women in contrast to the bedazzled pigs of modern society.

Do not put them down. Do not put down the clothing of any modestly dressed women if you want to see more modesty in general. You can encourage, or suggest, or model..but what does it mean to call a woman “uncool” in a world full of pigs? It’s foolishness. Say nothing if you cannot say speak good of good things. From the same Proverb:

With his mouth the godless man would destroy his neighbor,
    but by knowledge the righteous are delivered.
10 When it goes well with the righteous, the city rejoices,
    and when the wicked perish there are shouts of gladness.
11 By the blessing of the upright a city is exalted,
    but by the mouth of the wicked it is overthrown.
12 Whoever belittles his neighbor lacks sense,
    but a man of understanding remains silent.
13 Whoever goes about slandering reveals secrets,
    but he who is trustworthy in spirit keeps a thing covered.

Besides: Look at the picture. Those are four beautiful girls. Appearances can certainly be deceiving[2], but judging by appearances: Any young man would be lucky to gain the favor of those girls’ father, marry one, and then in holiness dress her up for himself however he would like.

[1] These people are mostly young, and had the poor judgment to be born in the modern era just like the rest of us. I don’t blame them for being ignorant, but here it will be challenged. PancakeLoach was one of them, and she’s now engaged in a multi-comment, multi-post rant against me which is totally incoherent. This is what she choose to do when I pointed out that she is among those who are sneering at Mennonites. This has seemed better to her than to say, “My bad”, “point taken”, or something similar.

[2]For all I know they might not be family, and that photo could have been taken right before they modeled bikinis for another company.