Correcting the Fake Narrative

The Fake News has been attempting to retroactively establish a fake narrative about President Trump’s robust response to Corona-chan:

One of the repeated lies of the anti-Trump media is that the president failed to do what was necessary to prevent the spread of this disease. We are told, by Democrats and the media, that President Trump “wasted” six weeks during which he should have been . . . Well, doing something more than what he did, which was actually quite a lot.

On Jan. 29, Trump announced the formation of his Coronavirus Task Force, headed by HHS Secretary Alex Azar, and including the CDC director Dr. Redfield, who retired from the Army medical service with the rank of colonel, and whose medical specialty is viruses. On Jan. 31, Trump announced a ban on travel from China, which was controversial at the time. The same day Trump announced the ban, Joe Biden, campaigning in Iowa, accused the president of “hysterical xenophobia,” saying Trump was leading with “fearmongering . . . instead of science.”

The claim that Trump is “anti-science” has become part of the media’s narrative about the COVID-19 outbreak. Supposedly, a bias against science explains why the president didn’t do whatever it was that his critics, with the benefit of hindsight, say he should have done. What he actually did, however, was entirely in keeping with what the medical experts would have advised, given the circumstances. With only six known coronavirus cases in the U.S., five of them were people who had just returned from Wuhan, and the sixth was a household member of one of these travelers. So the first thing to do, obviously, was stop the arrival of more infected people from China, where the pandemic began and at the time had just been recognized as a “global emergency” by the WHO.

OK, so what happened next? As of Feb. 26 — nearly a month after Trump had created the coronavirus task force — there were still only 15 known cases of the disease in the United States. It was on Feb. 28 that Case No. 16 was identified in Santa Clara County, California:

At that point — where the 16th case had just been identified — there was not a single known COVID-19 case in New York or New Jersey. The only known case on the East Coast up to that point, was a man who had recently arrived in Boston from Wuhan, China, in late January. At that time, Boston Public Health Commission director Rita Nieves said, “The risk to the general public remains low.” And this continued to be the case throughout February, so that if you want to cherry-pick quotes by President Trump during that time saying that he believed we had the problem under control, and that the Wuhan coronavirus posed no serious risk to Americans, so what? This was the consensus of the medical community at the time.

Let’s not forget that when Trump declared the China travel ban nearly a month before the medical community decided that the virus posed a serious risk to Americans, he was castigated for doing this by the very same people who are criticizing him for not having done enough now.


But WHICH god?

This defense of Robespierre is fascinating, illustrating as it does that one of the architects of the French Revolution was very different than he is commonly portrayed today. He was certainly much more sound than the average intellectual today on atheists and atheism. But I am not so certain as the author of the article that the god of which he was speaking was necessarily the Christian God.

Robespierre castigated the irreligion that prevailed in the aristocracy and the high clergy, with bishops like Talleyrand openly boasting of lying every Sunday. A gap had widened between the clerical hierarchy and the country priests. Among the latter, many were responsible for drafting the peasants’ cahiers de doléances. The counter-revolutionary bishop Charles de Coucy, of La Rochelle, said in 1797 that the Revolution was “started by the bad priests.” For Robespierre, they were the “good priests” whom the people of the countryside needed.

Robespierre was inflexible against the priests who submitted to the pope by refusing to take an oath on the Civil Constitution (voted July 12, 1790). But he also opposed, until his last breath, any plan to abolish the funds allocated to Catholic worship under the same Civil Constitution. He also opposed, but in vain, the new Republican calendar, with its ten-day week aimed at “suppressing Sunday,” by the admission of its inventor Charles-Gilbert Romme.

Robespierre’s worst enemies were the militant atheists, the Enragés like Pierre-Gaspard Chaumette or Jacques-René Hébert, who unleashed the movement for dechristianization in November 1793, and started closing the churches in Paris or transforming them into “Temples of Reason”, with the slogan “death is an eternal sleep” posted on the gates of cemeteries. Robespierre condemned “those men who have no other merit than that of adorning themselves with an anti-religious zeal,” and who “throw trouble and discord among us” (Club des Jacobins, November 21 1793). In his speech to the National Convention of December 5, 1793, he accused the dechristianizers of acting secretly for the counter-revolution. Indeed, “hostile foreign powers support the dechristianization of France as a policy pushing rural France into conflict with the Republic for religious reasons and thus recruiting armies against the Republic in Vendée and in Belgium.” By exploiting the violence of militant atheist extremists, these foreign powers have two aims: “the first to recruit the Vendée, to alienate the peoples of the French nation and to use philosophy for the destruction of freedom; the second, to disturb public tranquility in the interior, and to distract all minds, when it is necessary to collect them to lay the unshakable foundations of the Revolution.”

Again in his “Report against Philosophism and for the Freedom of Worship” (November 21, 1793), Robespierre again castigated the grotesque cults of Reason instituted in churches by atheist fanatics:

“By what right do they come to disturb the freedom of worship, in the name of freedom, and attack fanaticism with a new fanaticism? By what right do they degenerate the solemn tributes paid to pure truth, in eternal and ridiculous pranks? Why should they be allowed to play with the dignity of the people in this way, and to tie the bells of madness to the very scepter of philosophy?”

Anyhow, it’s a very good article that is well worth reading in its entirety.


These are NOT the end times

All End Times preaching is nothing more than narcisissm + false prophecy.  A reader writes:

A preacher that I know, who has preached the end of the world for 40 years, and has been wrong for 40 years, when asked about this current situation, said assuredly that this was not the end! He has always been wrong, so either it is the end, or, and this is my prediction, he will change his mind and start declaring it the end, or the beginning of the end. He, to a certain extent, and I dare say all end times preachers, are false prophets. That may be harsh, but if what they say does not come true are they not false? Would not my Dad, Uncles, Aunts, Grandparents, and Cousins been better served by a different message before they died. Were they living in the end times?

Every single person who states a firm opinion about any time being the end times is a false prophet and a liar. Every single one. I’ve been hearing Boomers pontificate about this since the end of the 1970s. I still remember the idiotic pamphlet “88 Reasons for 1988”. Even at the time, I knew it was complete idiocy, given specious illogic like “1988 is the 100th U.S. Congress. Water boils at 100 degrees. Therefore, the world will end in 1988!”

In fact, Boomer eschatologists who breathlessly followed Hal Lindsay were one reason I rejected Christianity as a teenager. It was patently obvious even at the time that there was absolutely no truth in them, as events have subsequently confirmed. That being said, the one thing I will say for Mr. Lindsay is that he correctly predicted the rise of global Islam at a time when absolutely no one else did, and he did so on the basis of logic derived from the Bible.

Jesus made it very clear that even he didn’t know the hour. So you don’t either, and don’t start appealing to how you’re certain that it is “the season” either. Evil men that people were identifying as potential Antichrist candidates in 999 AD have been completely forgotten by history, and there isn’t even a moderately plausible candidate today. So get over yourselves, forget the idiotic and entirely non-Biblical rapture nonsense, and deal with the fact that you’re almost certainly going to have to deal with the fallen world as it is for the rest of your life.

Live, love, and leave off waiting for a deus ex machina.


“Easter” means “Resurrection”

A poster asked about Easter on SocialGalactic:

Why do churches say Easter? Isn’t Easter a pagan holiday? I’ve started to say Resurrection Sunday at church and ppl ignore me.

Easter is not a pagan holiday. That’s atheist nonsense that requires an almost-complete ignorance of literally every foreign language but one. While there is a possible etymological link to the name of an Anglo-Saxon goddess named Eostre for whom there is absolutely no evidence outside of the writings of the venerable, but inventive Bede, but since the Germans use “Easter” too and English is partially derived from German, the word is much more likely linked to the old German word for resurrection, which is Erstehen.

One of the earliest appearances of “Easter” in English is in the Tyndale Bible, which actually refers to Ester. Remember, the conventional accusation about Easter being a pagan holiday concerned Ishtar, an Akkadian goddess of love and war, but that was never a viable explanation because none of the other European languages have any possible etymological link to a pagan holiday. Their Paschae, Pasqua, Pâques, Pascua, etc. all trace back to Passover.

So, the usual suspects dug around the history books and came up with Eostre, who was not a German goddess and for whom there is no evidence in the German linguistic record. But they did posit – or to put more clearly, made up – a nonexistent precursor goddess to a probably-invented goddess, whose nonexistent holiday could theoretically have been coopted by English and German Christians in the Sixteenth Century while celebrating the Erstehen on Paschae.

Needless to say, this makes absolutely no sense to anyone who is capable of understanding the conventional ordering of cause and effect. Note in particular that the first and only known reference to Eostre is in 725 AD, and the first known references to Ester and Passover, both of which are English neologisms popularized, if not necessarily coined by Tyndale, were in 1526 AD, centuries after Paskha (πάσχα) was first celebrated by Christians.

From Infogalactic’s Eostre page: a Proto-Indo-European goddess of the dawn is supported both by the evidence of cognate names and the similarity of mythic representation of the dawn goddess among various Indo-European groups… all of this evidence permits us to posit a Proto-Indo-European *haéusōs ‘goddess of dawn’ who was characterized as a “reluctant” bringer of light for which she is punished.

Since Easter most likely means Resurrection, it is unnecessary, redundant, and more than a little spergish to make a point of trying to force “Resurrection Sunday” on others.


Far worse than you think

As I have repeatedly observed, no matter how outlandish their theories may be, the conspiracy theorists are reliably far too conservative, as the historical reality is almost always more horrifying than the average individual is capable of imagining or even admitting:

VICTIMS of a warped social experiment in Germany where authorities deliberately placed troubled kids with paedophile foster parents are set to win compensation. Between 1969 to 2003, these homeless boys aged between six and 14 were handed over to paedos  — because it was thought the vulnerable kids might benefit from their attention.

The twisted logic behind behind the “Kentler experiment”— named after the leading sexologist Helmut Kentler who spearheaded it — was that paedophilia could have “positive consequences”. Astonishingly, in the late 1960s Kentler managed to persuade West Berlin’s ruling Senate that homeless boys would leap at the opportunity to be fostered by paedophile dads. It was successfully argued they would be “head over heels in love” with their new father figures.

About this time Kentler was publicly lobbying for decriminalisation sex between adults and children in West Germany. The academic argued youngsters “almost always more seriously damaged” by their abusers being prosecuted than by the abuse itself.

Don’t be surprised when similar projects in the USA and the UK are revealed. Adding P to the ever-growing sexual rights acronym has always been the end game of the human rights movement. The wicked will never, ever stop attempting to expand their so-called “rights” until they are able to legally a) have sex with, and, b) openly murder, children without fear of consequence or reprisal.

Once you understand that “the slippery slope” in this case is not a logical fallacy, but rather the straightforward observation of the step-by-step implementation of an oft-repeated process that has been attempted and resisted, implemented and eventually stamped-out, time and time again over the course of human history, you will understand why it should be stopped at the beginning of the process.


Mailvox: maybe I do have a point

A critic apologizes for assuming my nonexistent heresy:

I wrote you a letter concerning the trinity of God and I want to apologize for scolding you. I have come to understand the revelation of The Bible better these past few days and I admit I jumped the gun in criticizing your argument about the trinity. There are apparent contradictions between The Bible and the teaching about The Trinity like many believe it. I think this stems from the wrong interpretation that the catholic church presents about God. I also went over your argument again and admit that there is a contradiction between The Word of God and this belief in The Trinity as it is many times taught in different circles.

Accepted. As I frequently point out, any time an argument is reliant upon an observable falsehood or deception, it is usually being made in defense of a false position. The mere fact that I am frequently and erroneously criticized for not subscribing to “the Nicene Creed” when I am in fact the one subscribing to the actual Nicene Creed of 325 as opposed to the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed of 381 that most Christians wrongly believe to be “the Nicene Creed” should be sufficient to give the average critic pause.

It is also worth noting that the third Ecumenical Council of 431 reaffirmed the original 325 version of the Nicene Creed and rejected the later pseudo-Nicene version. And finally, you may wish to consider the fact that Sir Isaac Newton independently came to the same conclusion that I did. As for me, I could not care less if all the modern theologians from all the modern sects and churches and denominations declare otherwise. Given their assertions on various other theological matters, I tend to rather like our odds of being the party more in line with the truth.


Move away, Swedes

It is their country now:

Two Muslim women with opposing views on a headscarf ban in schools clashed in a fierce TV debate in Sweden. The teacher told the politician that people uncomfortable with the veil should just leave the country.

The heated exchange between Naouel Aissaoui, a school teacher in the Swedish municipality of Skurup, and local politician Loubna Stensaker Goransson was over a ban on veils in public schools, which Goransson and other council officials enacted in December. The decision angered many educators, and Aissaoui is among those leading the pushback.

“Move away if it annoys you,” Aissaoui said during a TV debate after her opponent said she disliked seeing little girls wearing the veil. “This is my country, too.”

Move where? All they are going to do is follow you. Better to sink the ships, reject the refugees, end the subsidies, repatriate the immigrants, and stay where you are.

It is absolutely immoral to allow refugees to settle in your country. And the Bible is one long lesson about the horrific consequences of permitting even moderate numbers of foreigners to live among you, beginning with Egypt and Canaan.

Immigration is rather like free speech. Both are scams that are intended to convince the target to lower its natural defenses until the balance of power is sufficiently altered. Then the vital importance of minority feelings and cultural norms abruptly disappear.


Repatriation or war

Those are always just two options. And there is no guarantee the native population will win the latter:

An Indian minister known for fiery and inflammatory rhetoric has declared that India’s Muslims should have been shipped to Pakistan at the time of partition in 1947, arguing the move would have saved the country a lot of trouble.

The controversial comment came from Giriraj Singh, minister of Animal Husbandry, Dairy and Fisheries, during a recent address in Purnia. He suggested that widespread unrest over two contentious laws – the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and a proposed National Register of Citizens (NRC) – could have been avoided had Indian Muslims been deported to Pakistan when the country was divided from present-day India.

“It is the time to commit ourselves to the nation. Before 1947, [Muhammad Ali] Jinnah pushed for an Islamic nation. It was a big lapse by our ancestors that we’re paying the price for,” Singh said.

From Canaan to Byzantium to the USA to India, the lesson is the same: always, Always, ALWAYS sink the damn ships. As Australia can confirm, the rabbits are never good for the native species.


Galileo had it coming

The Renaissance Mathematicus considers the importance that Galileo’s famously controversial work, Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo, actually played in the development of modern astronomy:

What role did the Dialogo actually play in the ongoing cosmological/astronomical debate in the seventeenth century? The real answer is, given its reputation, surprisingly little. In reality Galileo was totally out of step with the actual debate that was taking place around 1630. Driven by his egotistical desire to be the man, who proved the truth of heliocentricity, he deliberately turned a blind eye to the most important developments and so side lined himself.

We saw earlier that around 1613 there were more that a half a dozen systems vying for a place in the debate, however by 1630 nearly all of the systems had been eliminated leaving just two in serious consideration. Galileo called his book Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, but the two systems that he chose to discuss, the Ptolemaic/Aristotelian geocentric system and the Copernican heliocentric system, were ones that had already been rejected by almost all participants in the debate by 1630 . The choice of the pure geocentric system of Ptolemaeus was particularly disingenuous, as Galileo had helped to show that it was no longer viable twenty years earlier. The first system actually under discussion when Galileo published his book was a Tychonic geo-heliocentric system with diurnal rotation, Christen Longomontanus (1562–1647), Tycho’s chief assistant, had published an updated version based on Tycho’s data in his Astronomia Danica in 1622. This was the system that had been formally adopted by the Jesuits.

The second was the elliptical heliocentric system of Johannes Kepler, of which I dealt with the relevant publications in the last post.

Galileo completely ignores Tycho, whose system could explain all of the available evidence for heliocentricity, because he didn’t want to admit that this was the case, arguing instead that the evidence must imply a heliocentric system. He also, against all the available empirical evidence, maintained his belief that comets were sublunar meteorological phenomena, because the supporters of a Tychonic system used their perceived solar orbit as an argument for their system.  He is even intensely disrespectful to Tycho in the Dialogo, for which Kepler severely castigated him. He also completely ignores Kepler, which is even more crass, as the best available arguments for heliocentricity were to be found clearly in Kepler published works. Galileo could not adopt Kepler’s system because it would mean that Kepler and not he would be the man, who proved the truth of the heliocentric system.

Although the first three days of the Dialogo provide a good polemic presentation for all of the evidence up till that point for a refutation of the Ptolemaic/Aristotelian system, with the very notable exception of the comets, Galileo’s book was out dated when it was written and had very little impact on the subsequent astronomical/cosmological debate in the seventeenth century. I will indulge in a little bit of hypothetical historical speculation here. If Galileo had actually written a balanced and neutral account of the positive and negative points of the Tychonic geo-heliocentric system with diurnal rotation and Kepler’s elliptical heliocentric system, it might have had the following consequences. Firstly, given his preeminent skills as a science communicator, his book would have been a valuable contribution to the ongoing debate and secondly he probably wouldn’t have been persecuted by the Catholic Church.

Like Giordano Bruno and the Library of Alexandria, Galileo’s status as a secular saint and martyr rests almost entirely upon a false characterization of the historical events due to his utility in attacking the Roman Catholic Church and Christianity.


The stages of U.S. decline

Men of the West apply Sir John Glubb’s stages of the life cycle of empires with the rise and ongoing fall of the USA:

Let’s look at the Glubb’s stages of the life cycle and see how they match up with the life cycle of the United States.

Stage I: Outburst.   This stage is the pioneer stage.  As Glubb states, over and over again in history, we see a small native people exploding and conquering large land masses.  To many, this will make them think of Manifest Destiny and the western expansion, but to my own eye, the outburst was the Revolutionary War.  Before the war, the colonies were insignificant on the world stage.  Then came the defeat of the English.  It is after all called the Shot Heard Round the World for a reason.

Stage II: Age of Conquest:  In this stage we see the great expansion.  This is where manifest destiny comes in.  Old weapons are mastered and improved, new weapons are invented, and massive lands are conquered.   While conquering and settling these new lands, massive amounts of wealth are generated.  Again, this should all be sounding familiar.

Stage III:  Age of Commerce:  Industrial Revolution, anyone?  All of that wealth ends up being put to use, as infrastructure in this stage explodes.  In this stage, we see art and luxury.  You see grand state buildings.  The rich build themselves palaces.  Now think of Mr. Vanderbilt’s Biltmore.  Is it not a palace? It should be noted in this stage the schooling of boys is still intentionally rough.  Fortitude and courage and honesty are all priorities.  I would note that American Football was developed during this period to drive those qualities home.

High Noon:   This is the peak of the Nation. It’s the point where the nation goes from growing to dying.   For the US, this was the 1940s.  WWII was won. Evil was defeated, and everyone relaxed.  Money was everywhere. The US was the most powerful nation in the world.  And now, for the first time, we had something to lose, and we noticed we may want to protect it.

The USA is not unique. No nation or empire are, their inevitable protestations notwithstanding. The historical trends are clear, and it is only a matter of time before China replaces the USA as the leading global power. The intriguing question that remains to be settled is whether China will resist the call of empire or not, although history strongly suggests that it will eventually succumb to the temptation to rule over others as most other powerful nations before it have.