Email Subscriber Notice

 

I have received the following, from Google, which owns the blogger software that is behind this blog:

 

Hi bionic,

FeedBurner has been a part of Google for almost 14 years, and we're making several upcoming changes to support the product's next chapter. Here’s what you can expect to change and what you can do now to ensure you’re prepared.

Starting in July, we are transitioning FeedBurner onto a more stable, modern infrastructure. This will keep the product up and running for all users, but it also means that we will be turning down most non-core feed management features, including email subscriptions, at that time.

For those who use FeedBurner email subscriptions, we recommend downloading your email subscribers so that you can migrate to a new email subscription service.

For many users, no action is required. All existing feeds will continue to serve uninterrupted, and you can continue to create new accounts and burn new feeds. Core feed management functionality will continue to be supported, such as the ability to change the URL, source feed, title, and podcast metadata of your feed, along with basic analytics.

 

I have a couple of months to figure this out, but admittedly when it comes to various tech things, I am somewhat a luddite.  I didn’t even know how to see my subscribers’ list until I received this google notice!

In any case, those of you subscribed only by email, I will suggest that you subscribe via the “Followers” link immediately to the right.  I believe it requires a gmail address.  For the rest of you, I will see what I can do before this deadline.

Sorry for the hassle.

Christian Morality

 

Thus the good was done to all men, not merely to the household of faith.

-          Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, third century

The Age of Paradise: Christendom from Pentecost to the First Millennium, by John Strickland

In the aftermath of the notorious Spartacus rebellion, for instance, the road leading to Rome had been lined with no fewer than six thousand crucified slaves.

Rome was a cruel society, albeit the Romans did not believe it to be.  They practiced their ethic, finding their behaviors to be quite moral.  As Strickland notes, “Roman statesmen were connoisseurs of cruelty,” and this cruelty was not limited to the early Christians.

There is the story of Perpetua and Felicity, a young, aristocratic woman and her slave girl.  In 203, they were rounded up and brought to the central amphitheater to be executed – a fate which could be avoided if they gave up the Christian faith.  They would not.

The two walked into the arena together, hand in hand – the aristocrat with the slave.  Their death was to be especially cruel – first a bear, then a leopard, finally a raging bull.  None having fulfilled their purpose, finally the executioner finished the task.

Strickland notes that this event was one of many that began to shake traditional pagan morality.  The spectators could not help but see the victimization of the Christians and the fact that a slave was held in regard by the noblewoman.  They saw an image of a society far different than their own.

How to contrast some of the key features of the pagan religion and the Christian?  Many gods vs. one God; the world a spiritual prison vs. a world created in goodness; the gods appear as men vs. man created in God’s image; a god becoming man is unconscionable vs. the Incarnation.

These differences, coupled with Christ’s moral teaching, would present to the Roman world an ethic almost diametrically contrary to their own.  The improvements, which we take for granted today, were remarkable and stunning.  Christianity, blamed by many today for all the ills of the West, instead was the cure.

A noblewoman would hold hands with a slave – this was unbelievable to the Roman world, a shock to the system of values that had to be internalized by many of the watchers.  Blood sport was a normal part of Roman life, but while others were condemned as escaped slaves, murderers, or insurgents, Christians were condemned for being Christian.  And then, once again, the picture of the two young women comes into view.

Roman pagan morality held no meaningful concept of mercy, compassion, or forgiveness – mercy, at best, given some room as long as it didn’t interfere with honor.  Even more: concepts such as mercy, and especially forgiveness, were considered disgraceful in Roman society.  Conquest and vengeance were held in high regard – Odysseus would slaughter his wife’s host of suiters. 

The very question of mercy for the vulnerable and suffering was problematic.  Compassion disrupts the proper functioning of reason; therefore, it was usually treated as a vice. 

A truly virtuous Roman could look at the suffering of others without wincing.

Slavery offers another window.  Plato considered it inevitable and appropriate; Aristotle went further: slavery was not only necessary, but expedient.  It was part of the natural order of things.  To ameliorate slavery would have been seen as unethical, as it would subvert a social order that took for granted that some would legitimately dominate over others.

The Christians, on the contrary, were commanded to love.  And the Romans couldn’t help but see this played out.  They would care for the poor – Christian or pagan.  During times of plague, the Christians would remain in the cities to care for the suffering, and die with them. 

What of women?  The early Church was overwhelmingly female – which seems quite contrary to the patriarchal view of Christianity.  “This is hardly surprising, because Christianity dignified women.”  Paganism, on the other hand, assigned a low value to women. 

Female humanity was considered naturally inferior to male.  Aristotle would offer that women had no legitimate claim to equality of any kind – not political, not social, not intellectual.  He regarded femininity as a deformity.  For Plato, not only were women physically inferior, but morally and spiritually of less value as well.

Reform and Schism

 

If the Bishop of Rome could poke his nose into the affairs of Burgundy, then why not those of everywhere else?

-          Millennium, Tom Holland

The time was the mid-eleventh century.  At issue was the Cluny Abbey, a Benedictine Monastery with its founding and funding based on a significant gift in 910 from Duke William I of Aquitaine.  He gifted the monastery with no remaining interest to be held other than that the monastery prays for his family.  Having as its protector St. Peter, the monastery was left to rely on Peter’s vicar, the Pope.  And it turned out, usually, when the Pope spoke on such matters, the local nobles would listen.

But this also moved the position of pope from a local plaything of Roman dynasts to a position of importance to a wider Christendom.  Yet, could the papacy come under sufficient reform to make the extension of its authority acceptable to this wider audience?

Onto the stage stepped Henry III, son of Conrad, in 1039 at his father’s death.  Described by Holland as “a king of rare piety and conscientiousness,” Henry was well suited to the task of bringing king and Church together in the task of reforming a very corrupted Church.

[Henry’s] displays of humility, heartfelt though they were, did nothing to diminish his firm conviction that the sway of the Christian people had been granted him directly by God.

A scary notion, depending on the character of the one who holds it.

In 1043, he would hold a peace conference – not called by the bishops, but by Henry himself – at which he announced his forgiveness of his enemies.  A few years later, after feeling properly secure in his authority over the Reich, he led an expedition to Italy.  There, he would find not one pope, but three.

A truly monstrous state of affairs – and one that provided a fitting climax to the scandal-stained career of Benedict IX.

Apparently even the Romans had enough of Benedict, driving him temporarily from Rome and replacing him with Sylvester III, “an anonymous patsy quite unworthy of his title….”  Two years later, Benedict would return and was installed on his throne.  Reformers, tired of waiting, would install a third pope, Gregory VI, who would declare himself the patron of reform.

Henry, meanwhile, desiring to be emperor, would require one pope who would do him this honor.  He convened a meeting of the three, and deposed them all.  Then he would name one of his own: Clement II.  A few days later, and on Christmas Day, Henry would be anointed as the heir to Charlemagne. 

Clement would soon die, as would others popes in quick succession.  Finally, Bruno of Toul took the seat as Leo IX.  Laws against simony were enforced, many bishops deposed.  Those who would not attend hearings were excommunicated.  The full force of popular opinion was behind these moves.

Into this excitement steps one Humbert of Moyenmoutier.  He was able to demonstrate a most momentous conclusion: the papacy – the bishop of Rome – had an ancient entitlement to rule the entire Christian world.  But this was not all:

‘For such is the reverence among Christians for the holder of the apostolic office of Rome,’ Humbert coolly insisted, ‘that they prefer to receive the holy commandments and the traditions of their faith from the mouth of the head of the Church rather than from the Holy Scriptures or the writings of the Fathers.’

An avenue to destroy tradition and bring on permanent revolution!  Again, a scary notion, depending on the character of the one who wields such authority.  Humbert would be promoted to the position of cardinal bishop.  Until this time, the title of cardinal was little more than ceremonial.  Under Leo, the college of cardinals would become a powerhouse of administrative talent, manned by powerful reformers.

As positive as some of the changes brought on by Leo were, he lacked what all popes lacked – an iron fist.  Rome stood on the frontline of Islam; Constantinople and the Byzantines held many of the major ports.  And in this condition, he was presented a new foe in the south – the Normans, blackened vineyards, half-burned churches, and twisted corpses left in their wake.

The Borg Go to Jonestown

 

“We are the Borg."

-          The Collective

The Borg are an alien group that appear as recurring antagonists in the Star Trek fictional universe. The Borg are cybernetic organisms linked in a hive mind called "the Collective". The Borg co-opt the technology and knowledge of other alien species to the Collective through the process of "assimilation": forcibly transforming individual beings into "drones" by injecting nanoprobes into their bodies and surgically augmenting them with cybernetic components. The Borg's ultimate goal is "achieving perfection"

"They left behind their trivial, selfish lives, and they've been reborn with a greater purpose. We've delivered them from chaos into order."

-          Borg Queen

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On November 18, 1978, Peoples Temple founder Jim Jones leads hundreds of his followers in a mass murder-suicide at their agricultural commune in a remote part of the South American nation of Guyana. Many of Jones’ followers willingly ingested a poison-laced punch….

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Over the last few months, I don’t believe I have been on a call that hasn’t begun with “have you taken the vaccine?”  None of these people do I feel close enough to that I would bother explaining that it isn’t a vaccine, but in some cases I have offered some comment.  But before I get to that….

When did it become a thing to discuss openly – sometimes with dozens of people on the call (technically a zoom meeting or some such, but….) – one’s medical situation?  They will even ask about your – and tell stories about their – husbands, wives, children.  Since when is this normal?

We aren’t even allowed to discuss Joe Biden’s dementia, but we can discuss our jab status openly?  Does anyone discuss their hemorrhoids?  Prostate?  Impotence issues?  Menopause?  No…at least not yet.  But the shot?  They are almost giddy, telling stories about how they had to cross two states to get to a place that was offering a dose – some, even crossing country borders. 

Every call starts this way.  Like a ten-year-old letting his parents know about his Boy Scout badge, or a twelve-year-old telling his buddy about how he found his dad’s Playboy Magazine…. Giddy with joy if successful, agonizing if not.

When I am asked, I just say that I have never yet volunteered for a clinical trial, and I don’t intend to start now.  Usually this is followed by silence – either they all think I am stupid (probably the majority), or they are wondering why no one ever mentioned this (maybe an immeasurably small percent).

Rarely, someone will ask a follow-up – never on a group call, but if we are speaking one-one-one.  “Of course it is approved, why else would they be giving the shot?”  I patiently explain it is only an emergency authorization and that clinical trials aren’t scheduled to conclude for two years.

On an even more rare occasion, the person would say, “well, no one has been getting hurt from it.”  I then ask them if they are aware of the government database that tracks tens-of-thousands of adverse reactions, even including death.  Pretty much, they are silent after this.

Of course, there is much more that I can say, not only about the jab but going back to the “flatten the curve” era of a year ago.  But if they can’t deal with taking part in the animal trial phase of a medical experiment – a fact so well documented by official government sources – then they can’t deal with any of the truth.

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I have seen hundreds of cars lined up at sports facilities, for a drive-through jab: Jonestown, repeated in every city across the nation.  In the parking lot, a dozen or more tents, with cars lined up behind each one.  I assume (as I would never get close enough to be sure) that under this tent, the driver would put down his window, roll up his sleeve, then drive off.  Just like getting a burger at In-n-Out.

Having seen many individuals with negative reactions immediately after taking the jab (including passing out, getting dizzy, etc.), one wonders why these people are allowed to drive immediately thereafter.  Well, I guess it’s no wonder – because, as we have been told, there are no negative reactions – these are perfectly safe and fully tested.

Let’s just say that I don’t drive near the exit of these mass jabbing sites.

The History of the West

 

Before there was a West, there was Christendom.

The Age of Paradise: Christendom from Pentecost to the First Millennium, by John Strickland

This will be different.  John Strickland is an Orthodox scholar, professor, and priest.  This book is the first of a contemplated four-book history of Christendom – inherently a history of the West, but integrating the Christian East.

Strickland uses the term “Christendom” more expansively – not limited to the West from the eleventh to the sixteenth century, but covering the entirety of a civilization from its beginnings two-thousand years ago.

From its beginnings, Christianity engaged with the world – God, after all, came to the earth in the flesh.  It was always seen – at least until recent years only in some subset of denominations – as engaged with the kingdom in this world, not merely an unearthly kingdom in the next; the eternal kingdom was made immanent.

This was an active calling for its adherents:

From its inception, Christendom contained what can be called a “transformational imperative,” an evangelical mandate to participate in the renewal of the cosmos by bringing it into alignment with the kingdom of heaven.

This was unique to Christianity, and this is why Christendom became the civilization that most changed the course of history.

Strickland offers an interesting thought: for its first fifteen centuries – in both East and West – Christendom was grounded with some sense of humility, calling for the spiritual transformation of one’s own life.  But things turned in the West with the Renaissance:

Simply put, humanists and the nihilists that followed them ceased to see the world’s misalignment with the kingdom of heaven as their own fault and instead blamed it on others.

Detached from humility and the practice of repentance, this ultimately led to the secular Enlightenment, Jacobin France, and Communist Russia – a search for heaven on earth: utopia.  We have gone from the public ritual of Lent to the public ritual of political debate (or, worse, the guillotine and gulag).

This really is an interesting insight: since it is your fault, I need no longer be humble in my approach to change you; I am fully justified in using force to change you, as you are, in manner of speaking, a criminal.  We certainly live in a time when the Christian West has taken this idea to an extreme.  This is cancel-culture writ large; it is the sin of being born white – a fault that both cannot be erased and requires no humility to confront.

The lack of humility in the self-righteous of today is overwhelming, but is it just the flip side of the lack of humility in the Progressive Protestants of 100 years ago?  In other words, without the humility found in the first 1500 years of Christendom, are we left with only the extreme of self-righteousness?

It seems to me that this humility was grounded in the idea of Original Sin, or the reality that all men are fallen.  Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn captured it well:

The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either -- but right through every human heart -- and through all human hearts.

Understanding this will make one humble.  Returning to Strickland:

Today we Westerners live in an advanced state of cultural oblivion.

There is a crisis of values; suicide rates, addiction rates, divorce rates, abortion rates – all point to a dark and self-destructive culture and society.  This at the same time that anti-Christian roots are taking hold while Christian roots are dying – or being actively destroyed.

Virtuous Governance

 

Ira Katz has offered a response, continuing the dialogue that began with his initial question: Is it inherent in the nature of free market capitalism for the most wealthy individuals and/or corporations to capture government power?  He answers, “Yes, but keep capitalism.”  He also graciously acknowledges my several posts in exploring his initial question.

I would like to follow up on a couple of tangential, and maybe not-so-tangential, points made in this current response.  Ira begins by noting an analysis by Hans Hoppe, where Hoppe recognizes the reality that Marxists see quite clearly the relationship of wealth and state power, just as libertarians and those who favor free markets do; the issue, or difference, is what to do about it.  Ira writes:

[Hoppe] ends his essay “…. the end of exploitation and the beginning of liberty and unheard of economic prosperity, means the establishment of a pure private property society regulated by nothing but private law.”

Ira does not agree, noting: “My original question and my answer imply that I do not believe so.”  In other words, “a pure private property society regulated by nothing but private law” is not sufficient in Ira’s view (nor, obviously, in mine).  Ira properly asks: “Can there be a virtuous government without a virtuous people?”  Of course, the answer is no; this is what I wish to explore.

For this, I must come back to Hoppe, and separate him from the other libertarians Ira notes.  There is much more to Hoppe than this.  In September, 2018, Hoppe gave a very important talk at his annual Property and Freedom Society Conference, entitled “The Libertarian Quest for a Grand Historical Narrative.” 

Why do I find it important?  If dry facts, rational arguments, and reason are sufficient to win the debate, libertarians and Austrians have won the debate, hands down.  These are not sufficient, as it is narrative that wins the day, that wins the argument.  We live in a narrative, a story; we don’t live in a formula.

Even if you believe that we are nothing more than an accident of nature, nothing more than random atoms smashed together randomly, we certainly don’t live as if this is true.  My mother and father are something more to me than blobs of matter.

The left understands this quite well.  They create stories about Russians and elections, viruses that make breathing a life-ending event.  The greatest of all: the story that destroys all stories – critical theory, the success of which has divorced us from all stories that give life meaning.  Hence, we are left to be molded by whatever destructive narrative the left chooses to foist upon us.

So, back to Hoppe’s talk.  His grand historical narrative was not one that demonstrated “a pure private property society regulated by nothing but private law.”  In this talk and after offering a sweeping background on the relationship of science, technology and engineering, Hoppe offers up…the Ten Commandments – seeing in these values necessary for a peaceful, cooperative society:

Setting the first four commandments aside, which refer to our relation to God as the one and only ultimate moral authority and final judge of our earthly conduct and the proper celebration of the Sabbath, the rest, referring to worldly affairs, display a deep and profoundly libertarian spirit.

Honor you father and mother; don’t murder, commit adultery, or steal; do not bear false witness; do not covet your neighbor’s wife or house or belongings.

Some libertarians may argue that not all of these commandments have the same rank or status.

Of course not.  Some of these do not violate the non-aggression principle.  As Hoppe notes, however, there is nothing said here about the severity or type of punishment:

Yet this difference between a strict and rigid libertarianism and the ten biblical commandments does not imply any incompatibility of the two. Both are in complete harmony if only a distinction is made between legal prohibitions on the one hand…and extra-legal or moral prohibitions on the other hand…

Some may be appropriately punished via physical violence; others by social disapproval or even ostracism.

Indeed, thus interpreted the full six mentioned commandments can be recognized as even an improvement over a strict and rigid libertarianism - given the common, shared goal of social perfection: of a stable, just and peaceful social order.

Hoppe offers: in a society where parents are habitually disrespected, where the idea of hierarchies are mocked, where marriage is discounted and adultery is exalted, where honesty is not respected…can one expect liberty to shine?  Do these characteristics make for a virtuous people necessary for virtuous government?  The answer is an obvious no.

My point is, Hoppe goes beyond a strict private-law society – and goes beyond the other libertarians mentioned in Ira’s piece.  Unlike some libertarian thinkers, Hoppe understands the necessity of this if one is after liberty.

Atlas is Shrugging

 

March, 2020: simultaneously, hundreds of millions of people were forcibly put out of work while at the same time multiple-trillions of dollars were created out of thin air.  What could possibly go wrong when demand is stimulated while supply is depressed?

·         The world is experiencing a computer chip shortage…

·         Resin shortages are affecting production…

·         Seat foam shortage could cut car production…

·         Shortages in lumber, steel, electrical supplies and lighting affect the construction industry…

·         Skyrocketing steel and lumber costs threaten to slow construction jobs…

·         Price increases in fixtures and fittings….

·         Oil and gas prices increasing…

·         Global food commodity prices rose for the ninth consecutive month in February…

Add to this, mother nature: Weather slams the economy….

All summed up nicely by the Wall Street Journal:

Everywhere You Look, the Global Supply Chain Is a Mess: Winter storms and crammed ports in the U.S. add to disruptions of production and supplies during the pandemic

Meanwhile, government deficits and central bank balance sheets have the full green light to grow…to infinity and beyond.

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Taken from the Cliffs Notes book summary of Atlas Shrugged:

The country is in a downward economic spiral with businesses closing and men out of work.

Check.

Worsening the economic depression in the U.S. is the unexplained phenomenon of talented men retiring and disappearing.

Not exactly.

None of this is happening in our world because talented men are retiring or disappearing.  It is those believed to be the talented men – that our society rewards as the talented men – that are behind today’s reality.

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Francisco d'Anconia: If you saw Atlas, the giant who holds the world on his shoulders, if you saw that he stood, blood running down his chest, his knees buckling, his arms trembling but still trying to hold the world aloft with the last of his strength, and the greater his effort the heavier the world bore down upon his shoulders-what would you tell him to do?

Hank Rearden: I . . . don't know. What . . . could he do? What would you tell him?

Francisco d'Anconia: To shrug.

It isn’t talented men that are shrugging.  It is something far more valuable and far less forgiving.  It is the natural law ethic, and the natural rights of private property that are derived from this.  Natural law is shrugging, and she is a far less forgiving master than was John Galt.

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Jeff Allen, citing John Galt: "'I will put an end to this, once and for all,' he said. His voice was clear and without feeling. That was all he said and started to walk out. He walked down the length of the place, in the white light, not hurrying and not noticing any of us. Nobody moved to stop him. Gerald Starnes cried suddenly after him, 'How?' He turned and answered, 'I will stop the motor of the world.' Then he walked out."

It is the talented men that stopped the motor of the world, all right.  Not for any righteous, John Galt-type crusade, not for any noble purpose – and certainly not for the purpose for which man was made.  Their purpose is wealth, control, and power.  Their purpose could be even more sinister – population reduction and some sort of trans-humanism.