Author: VD

Alex surfaces after a long absence:

BTW, anytime Vox wants to bring up the lies and propaganda about chemotherapy, the food supply and the so-called war on cancer, I’m ready with both guns loaded. Hint- Everything you think you know about food, germs and disease is probably the inverse of the truth. Off topic, but highly important.

I’m very sorry to hear about what you indicate is likely to be a short trip, Alex, so the least I can do is to provide you with a topic on which to wax furious. I’ve never written on this subject because I know next to nothing about it, although a very good friend of mine did lose her father recently thanks to some incompetent care practiced by a so-called expert. While I may not share the skeptic’s view of modern medical science, neither do I regard it as omniscient, omnipotent and above all critical review.

BW echoes my previous thinking on free trade:

I think NAFTA and its cousins are not really free trade. They’re increased regulation. Getting the government OUT of the market generally leads to prosperity. Creating new bureaucracies to make sure everyone plays fair isn’t free trade – it’s more like socialism. Free trade really is a good idea.

By free trade, I don’t mean the government has NO role in the deal. I think, for example, that the constitutional method of taxation (excise taxes, import duties) is the best way to fund the government – as long as they don’t play games with it like taxing textiles 20% and everything else 2%. That’s not exactly leaving the market alone. But when the government keeps its hands propertly tied, the people are free to trade as they wish. If all governments play that way, everyone wins. My two cents.

Yes, this is the conventional theory, and one to which I have subscribed for many years. However, the reality does not seem to match the theory, for example, what if a nation has no genuine competitive advantage over another? Should it then elect to lose out to the world? Is that wise? And on a global scale, what nation can hold a competitive advantage over every other nation in the world?

As I pointed out in my article today, the very concept of free trade is becoming increasingly meaningless, as the nations wane in terms of sovereignty and the multinational corporations and supranational organizations wax in power.

Daniel Pipes appears to be giving up on Iraq:

“I cheer the goal of a ‘free and democratic Iraq,’ but the time has come to acknowledge that the coalition’s achievement will be limited to destroying tyranny, not sponsoring its replacement. There is nothing ignoble about this limited achievement, which remains a landmark of international sanitation. It would be especially unfortunate if aiming too high spoils that attainment and thereby renders future interventions less likely. The benefits of eliminating Saddam’s rule must not be forgotten in the distress of not creating a successful new Iraq.

Fixing Iraq is neither the coalition’s responsibility nor its burden. The damage done by Saddam will take many years to repair. Americans, Britons, and others cannot be tasked with resolving Sunni-Shiite differences, an abiding Iraqi problem that only Iraqis themselves can address.”

I’m just wondering why so many people took these johnny-come-latelies seriously for so long. I’ve been saying for years that it is not possible to build nations. Germany was a nation. Japan was a nation. Iraq is Yugoslavia, an artificial construct held together by extreme violence. When Saddam was removed, the two choices were tripartite separation (which would probably lead to violence in the short- to medium-term) or immediate violence. In their foolish Wilsonian arrogance, the president and his pet neoconservatives – or is it the other way around – opted for the latter.

The Marines are a fine fighting force, but they are no more capable of resolving violent religious differences that span centuries than they are of winning the gold medal in ice dancing at the 2002 Winter Olympics. It’s like expecting your car to make you dinner.

Catherine Seipp can’t control an instinctively feminist reaction:

You may think you’ll hate Big Love, HBO’s new family drama about Utah polygamists that premieres Sunday, but I’ll bet you won’t. I was certainly prejudiced against it, because I’ve grown irritable with that common libertarian response to the anti-gay marriage argument: So what, I sometimes hear, if legalized gay marriage leads to legalized polygamy? My answer is that legalized polygamy is legalized slavery (or at least official chattel status) for women and children, and I don’t see how you can support liberty and also support that.

Unless you believe that marriage to one woman is enslaving, (or at least official chattel status for that woman and her children), how can you conclude that marrying a second wife is slavery? This is merely a nominally conservative woman whose feminist instincts are reacting to the realization that the power balance between men and women is about to shift dramatically again in American society.

We have already witnessed the first stage, as both feminists and anti-feminists now realize that men are not so easily reprogrammed to suit the feminist vision of the future. Now, the Law of Unintended Consequences is about to fall with a vengeance upon those who sought to overthrow the traditional Western family in favor of an egalitarian model more to their liking.

Saletan writes on how 48 of 50 abortionettes agree:

Friday morning, leaders of pro-choice and feminist groups gathered at the Center for American Progress to debate the movement’s future. One of the panelists reported that the latest annual tally of abortions in this country was 1.295 million. The most recent comparative numbers, detailed in an article I brought to the meeting, indicated that our abortion rate exceeds that of every Western European nation. “Raise your hand if you think that number is too high,” the conference moderator told the 50 people in the room.

I saw one hand go up. The woman next to me said she saw another. The two hand-raisers used to work for pro-choice groups but no longer do.

Since 1.295 million abortions per year isn’t enough, I suggest the federal government begin a campaign to increase that number, beginning with blacks and Jews. After all, the two groups are the strongest supporters of the Abortion Party, so there’s no reason why they shouldn’t be the first to benefit from the wonders of their favorite procedure.

Pam of Pandagon doesn’t quite grasp the point of a military:

It’s so awful that the good men and women in uniform have to serve alongside animals like these, and that superiors that allow the sh*t to continue.

Oh dear, soldiers are beating people up and raping them again. That’s not, like, supposed to happen, is it? I mean, that hardly ever happens….

The purpose of a military is to break things and kill people. In order to do this effectively, you have to train individuals to become killing machines. The best killing machines tend to be young men with moderate IQs and high testosterone levels, who, surprisingly enough, tend to be significantly more aggressive than the norm.

This is a wonderful trait when you are told to take a location away from a heavily armed enemy that outnumbers you. It is less wonderful when you are at a tea party. The reason those superiors allow the “sh*t” to continue, and always will, is that they would like to have an army that is capable of breaking things and killing people, especially since the civilian command seems to have a fairly long wish list of things to be broken and people to be killed.

The group of five soldiers that beat up the gay man were not only exhibiting poor manners but also martial honor; what Pam also doesn’t understand is that those five men are expected to fight as one regardless of whether they face one or thirty opponents. Expecting an American soldier to fight fair is not only wildly absurd, but reveals a complete ignorance of how the USA trains its men to fight… the USA fights in the most unfair manner of any military in history. It’s most amusing to read how soldiers of the Waffen SS, a truly fearsome fighting machine, complained about how the American infantry in WWII fought. The SS didn’t think it was quite fair play to simply make contact, hold your ground and call in air strikes and artillery to pound your opponent, only assaulting when the Germans were half-broken from the massive bombardment.

Joe Haldeman wrote a classic SF novel about how an advanced society finally puts its warriors into deep freeze since it doesn’t need them anymore and they simply can’t fit into an emasculinized, peaceful society. Considering the serious challenges looming on the near-term and medium-term horizons, Pam should probably be grateful that there are still a number of dangerous men able to do terrible things on behalf of her and her compatriots. Even if American society had such a deep freeze and people favored using it, I rather doubt we’d be able to.

There are fine, upstanding men in the military who would never dream of beating someone up for no reason. And there are hard men who like nothing better than fighting anyone, for any reason at all. Both sorts will continue to have a place in the US military as long as winning wars involves breaking things and killing people, if ever humanity evolves to the point that needlepoint and color coordination represent the primary means of settling human conflict, America will be able to afford an Army of Fabulous that would likely offend Pam less. As for the good women in uniform… the less said about that negligible collection of quasi-militarized welfare cases, the better.

Have you read Craig Westover’s column lately? Your column on this item was only tongue-in-cheek, right?

I was wondering about the extinction of the blondes piece in the Telegraph because it seemed vaguely familiar, but I have never worried much about my responsibility for accepting a widely reported, but erroneous fact at face value. It happens from time to time, especially when one writes on areas that are outside one’s area of direct experience or expertise.

Since the column was a lightweight one that stated little more than “I really like blondes and I am deeply suspicious of the motivation behind advertising that pushes multiculturalism”, I’m not exactly terrified that my credibility has been permanently compromised by taking the reporting of a major newspaper at face value. The Official Story as presented daily by the mainstream media is so packed full of lies, myths and inaccuracies that I’d assert that the majority of the so-called facts reported are incorrect if examined in detail by a person with direct knowledge of the matter, so its merely a question of which ones you catch and which ones you don’t. Some, of course, are easier to spot than others.

In the column a week later, I rearranged a sentence and introduced a silly error. Cybelline is the adjective for the Goddess Cybele. I’d originally write “the Cybelline rites” and then thoughtlessly changed it to “the rites of Cybelline”. One is practicing the Cybelline rites by celebrating the rites of Cybele. I was aware that historical consensis is that the mutilation performed was actually self-castration, but as I informed Steve, the professor of classics who wanted to make sure that we were all clear on who was cutting off what, I simply couldn’t resist the metaphorical imagery of a horde of angry Christian women storming the pulpit and emasculating the pastor.

Well, I laughed, anyhow….

Larry reveals the limits of dogma:

Wherever one person is said to be the “head” of another person (or persons),the person who is called the “head” is always the one in authority (such as the general of an army, the Roman emperor, Christ, the heads of the tribes of Israel, David as head of the nations, etc.) Specifically, we cannot find any text where person A is called the “head” of person or persons B, and is not in a position of authority over that person or persons. So we find no evidence for your claim that “head” can mean “source without authority.””

Simply wrong, the NT states that “God is the head of Christ”…Unless you subscribe so subordinationalism, one of Arius’ errors, this passage cannot be taken to mean that God is superior to Christ. It would make Christ a second class God.

Follow the line of thought here, which is inspired by the feminist desire to find Biblical support for an equalitarian doctrine of equal partnership in marriage.

1. Ignore the direct commands to obedience.
2. Interpret “head” to mean “source”, then deny that “source” conveys any authority.
3. When it is shown that “source” does convey authority, argue against this based on an inference that there is no hierarchical authority within the three aspects of the Father, Son and Counselor despite the obvious authority inherent in the Father-Son relationship.

This isn’t logical reasoning, this is stubborn and pernicious rationalization of the sort usually seen in Supreme Court justices prone to penumbra-spotting. And it is easily proven false by any number of Scriptural examples, here are four examples from the single chapter of John 15 alone which demonstrate the falsehood of Larry’s dogmatic assertion that the Son is not subordinate to the Father.

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener.”

“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you.”

“If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love.”

“They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the One who sent me.”

It is clear, again, that one cannot reasonably argue that Jesus Christ is equal to God and not subordinate to Him without simultaneously arguing that any individual Christian is equal to Jesus Christ and not subordinate to him either. It is not terribly surprising that those who argue that there is no Biblical command for women to obey men within marriage soon find themselves in the position of denying their own duty to obey Jesus Christ or the Father.

And continuing to engage in ever more specious illogic, Larry finds himself forced to rely on an obviously false equation:

No, it is exactly the issue, it is impossible to be always subordinate in role without being subordinate in nature. What someone can do is a function of what they are. It’s kind of sad that some would rather embrace Arianism rather than give up their supposed “headship” over women.

The naturally superior man is often subordinated in role to his inferior, indeed, this was the great complaint of Friedrich Nietzsche. Plato’s Republic is the first of many efforts by the subordinately superior to build a case to provide them with a role concomitant with their inherent natural superiority. Larry’s feminine, passive-aggressive conclusion, which he provides in lieu of directly answering the criticisms raised, provides a potential explanation for why the doctrine of equal partnership is so appealing to him, as it frees him from assuming the burden of responsibility that goes with authority.

It’s princes who have all the fun, after all.

I am still waiting for an explanation of how ANY translation of kephale frees women from the command “to submit to your husbands in everything”, or how a party subject to submission in everything is not under the authority of that to which it must submit. Furthermore, it is clear that submission is equivalent to obedience in this passage, as 1 Peter 3 makes clear:

For this is the way the holy women of the past who put their hope in God used to make themselves beautiful. They were submissive to their own husbands, like Sarah, who obeyed Abraham and called him her master. You are her daughters if you do what is right and do not give way to fear.

The fact that Christian women resist submission primarily due to fear of their husband’s inadequate leadership should suffice to prove my case. No contortions, appeals to ancient authority or cultural relativism are necessary to it, only a belief that the Bible is indeed the Word of God.

A leading international business consultant offers relationship advice:

What would you say to a woman who wants a career but is afraid to do so because she wants to start a family?

Doctor Monique Siegel: I would tell her to talk to her fiancé and lay down the law. If a woman wants to work outside the family, she has to settle that first at home. What does it mean for us to have a child? Who is going to take care of it? Are you going to give up part of your career because I did not study in order to sit at home and baby-sit my children?

I’m not saying that you’d have to be brain-dead in order to go ahead and marry a woman like this after having such a giant red flag waved in your face, but it sure would help. Of course, this “Dr. Siegel” is obviously a figment of my imagination, since everyone knows that no one could possibly give such overtly stupid advice. It must be a strawfeminist!

The bolder and more confident that feminists become, the more surely they guarantee the extinction of their devolutionary ideology. They don’t want to have children, men don’t want to marry them… it won’t be long before young men wise up enough to avoid dating them altogether. On the plus side, of course, they’ll have no distractions to keep them from shattering the various glass ceilings that trouble them so.

And the Messiah has not yet come. This can’t bode well:

In a closed-door meeting this week in an undisclosed site near Baltimore, a committee of Jewish legal experts who set policy for Conservative Judaism will consider whether to lift their movement’s ban on gay rabbis and same-sex unions.

In 1992, this same group, the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards, declared that Jewish law clearly prohibited commitment ceremonies for same-sex couples and the admission of openly gay people to rabbinical or cantorial schools. The vote was 19 to 3, with one abstention.

Since then, Conservative Jewish leaders say, they have watched as relatives, congregation members and even fellow rabbis publicly revealed their homosexuality. Students at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York City, the movement’s flagship, began wearing buttons saying “Ordination Regardless of Orientation.” Rabbis performed same-sex commitment ceremonies despite the ban.

The direction taken by Conservative Jews, who occupy the centrist position in Judaism between the more liberal Reform and the more strict Orthodox, will be closely watched at a time when many Christian denominations are torn over the same issue. Conservative Judaism claims to distinguish itself by adhering to Jewish law and tradition, or halacha, while bending to accommodate modern conditions.

If we recollect how God treats His Chosen People every time they decide to start ignoring His commands given to them in their holy scriptures, I can’t imagine that this is a good sign for Jewry. When I was a kid, reading the Old Testament, it always puzzled me that the Jews would ignore God, get the Hell beaten out of them by the Assyrians, the Hittites or somebody, shape up for a few generations, and then go right back to worshipping idols again.

So naturally, it makes sense that after twenty-five years of AIDS ravaging the homosexual community, the Conservative Jews are considering embracing homosexuality. As long as they’re at it, why don’t they just go for broke and set up a golden calf in the middle of New York City.

Not that the Christian church is a whole lot better on the obedience thing, but you’d think that Jews, with their consscious dedication to tradition and remembrances, would have a better collective memory.