Knowledge of Good And Evil

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

I probably shouldn’t expect anyone forty or so, no matter what supposed position of authority to know anything about how economics works. Even those who — as this one did — announces they’re not socialist and communist have their brain eaten up by all the Marxist cr*p they were fed in school.

I know because I was fed the same, and it took till my mid forties and a lot of reading to thoroughly rid myself of it.

However one of these days I’m going to stand up in church and correct the sermon. And then all h*ll is going to break lose. Probably literally.

The poor man was trying, I grant you, but his point to begin with was super-stretched. He was trying to say a thing on being in the world but not of the world, and decided to go with both feet into his description of Roman society. This was bad enough, because it wasn’t exactly accurate. Or was profoundly strange. Like he seemed to think the Romans were uniquely bad because of slavery. (Lowers head into hand and moans.) When of course every society of the time had slavery. At least by and large (with exceptions, because, well) Romans didn’t practice human sacrifice, or not in batch lots. At least not anymore.

Yeah, yeah, gladiators. But again, every society of the time had something like. We are different only by virtue of being able to fake guts and blood well enough no one needs die. There is enough of the animal with us we do enjoy watching violence.

But then his attempts to say we, in America, in our time, are as bad as Rome. (Slaps forehead.)

Look, no. Just no. No, gangbangers shooting each other is not like gladiator fights. No one is applauding it or paying them for it. It’s just the price of doing business outside the law. It’s the same in every society throughout history.

And then…. and then saying we, like the Romans who overindulged in food, then threw up to indulge again, are “indifferent to people starving on the streets.” Dude. Duuuuuude. The only people “starving” on the streets of America are doing so because Meth is a hell of a drug, not because people AREN’T pushing food at them at every possible turn. On the contrary. Remember the guy who moved to a new town with no job and $5 and within three months, without applying for official help had a job, a furnished apartment and a beater car? And he didn’t have more because he kept turning away official assistance.

As for people starving in the rest of the world? It’ s complicated. I’ve read articles by Africans telling us to stop sending them food and money. Mostly because apparently the most lucrative career an African in most of Africa can have is driving NGO people around. Which means what their brightest people do is…. work that doesn’t advance anything or provide anything local.

For my money, my lefty brother was right about one thing: China has done more for Africa than the West has. Instead of giving them our surplus and choking their own native attempts at industry and agriculture, with our free or much cheaper stuff, they built factories, roads and airports. Yes, it was done with the intent to exploit the natives. But Africa is Africa and the Chinese soon found that tribal societies have trouble with national agreements. On the other hand, infrastructure will remain here and there beyond the next local war, and might help them. Certainly will help them more than bags and bags of food.

Oh, you want to help people starving? Well, in the modern world people starve because their rulers steal everything and or, like in Cuba, enforce their not picking up food literally from the environment (purses searched for shrimp. Not a joke.) You want to help them? Topple their horrible government. Then topple the next one and the next one, and then maybe, afterwards something will emerge. Or not. Cultures are complicated and cultures that have been under the heel of tyrants too long might not recover well. Really the only way is to kill everyone over the age of three, and then raise those in our culture.

Any religious man up for that? No, I didn’t think so.

So, you know what we can do? Stop feeding them and let them topple from inside. Because international charity is hard. It involves cultural things, and different priorities, and we do more harm than good. Oh, make international adoption easier. It’s better than opening the borders, and then the kids — under 3 please — will be raised in our culture. That might do some good. And makes up the population shortfall without facilitating invasion.

But of course, the churches are all in on facilitating invasion. We got told that illegals are working under horrible conditions because they can’t complain. Apparently our minister is unable to think through the obvious point: if this weren’t better than how it is at home, they wouldn’t be here. Our country, with its standard of living and its social net is an attractive nuisance. Which is why we need strong borders. So pitch them out and reinforce the border. What are the chances he’d be for that?

And I’m aware that a lot of industries simply can’t function at the current minimum wage. Just can’t. Agriculture, and some manufacturing. It’s impossible to stay in business and pay all the money to people who are untrained plus pay the government mordida in the form of various fees. It’s cool. Maybe if we seal the border, we’ll finally make “no minimum wage, and no government monkeying in the economy” viable. But I bet you the minister wouldn’t be for it either.

And then there was his assertion there is no slavery anywhere in the world, but children in sweatshops sewing sneakers. This man needs an economics book flown in ASAP. Because he’s stupid and ill informed. (TBF earlier he admitted to listening to NPR and got booed by the congregation, so he hasn’t done it since.)

Yes, there is slavery in our world. Uygurs and others in China. OTOH those “children in sweatshops” are replicating our own industrial revolution. They are making more money and likely eating better than in their dirt-poor villages. Which is why they take their jobs. You let it work itself out and they’ll be the new middle class and demand better for their kids. Let’s not impose our standards on a society that has no alternative but kids working, and working at dirty and dangerous jobs too. Because we are the product of generations doing that, and that’s why we’re well off enough for adults — EDUCATED ADULTS — to be completely ignorant of the facts of life.

And then — and then — he comes up with how sports figures make so much money, when so many people are subsisting on minimum wage, and …. inequality!

Oh, dude, G-d love. Someone has to and your head being full of rocks makes it hard for us in the real world not to throw things at you.

Yeah, some people make more money than others. Usually people of unusual ability and talent, who nonetheless also had to work very hard and sharpen their natural gift over a lot of time to get where they are.

It is people who create inventions or companies that produce things (business is a type of talent. I know, because I don’t got it) who drive the wealth that allows our “minimum wage” workers to live like kings compared to most of the world.

Why should anyone work hard at developing a talent or at creating something if their reward is the same as someone doing a poor table-waiting job at the local dead-end-diner? (There are good diners. And there are abysmal ones.)

That’s not justice. That’s crazy cakes.

While you’re at it, why should a writer write books if he doesn’t get paid more than minimum wage? And I don’t know about you, but I’d rather Larry C. doesn’t go and work as an accountant again. Because sometimes I need a break, and I need stuff to read. Because reading stuff gives me hope.

Now, I don’t get watching sports. Never did. I guess it’s because I’m not spacial-visual. I can watch it, but there’s no wonder for me. BUT that’s tastes, okay? My dad used to spend his weekends watching sports. It was his page-scroll break.

Why should he do that if the athletes were people pulled off the street? And that’s what they would be, if there were no money in it.

Let people pay what they think someone is worth. Stop trying to control how others live.

Because at the bottom of that, it’s just envy.

And your attempt to “do good” turns into evil. Which I believe was something something about a lesson in a garden somewhere.

Then you wonder why the pews are empty. You know, we can get our Marx, undiluted, from CNN and the New York Times. And these days, they too are having trouble keeping their metaphorical pews full. Because we’ve seen the fruits of their “compassion.” And they’re rotten.

I mean, every Odd empathizes with ‘be in the world but not of the world’ but if you must preach that we be of another, completely imaginary — and not in the sense of having faith in something beyond, but in the sense of making up a reality because this one doesn’t suit you — world we’re going to have some problems.

And sooner or later, I’m going to stand on the pew and talk back.

Which will just cause talk.

145 thoughts on “Knowledge of Good And Evil”

  1. “And sooner or later, I’m going to stand on the pew and talk back.

    Which will just cause talk.”

    When you do, the Reader would like the video posted to YouTube. Particularly if it involves Moose and Squirrel. Ducking now…

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    4. hahaha

      I can’t believe (and yet, I do) that this was my exact reaction too and I scrolled down to post it and there it is, first comment :D :D

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      1. I’ll be honest, Sarah, I’ve found that the various varieties of the Orthodox (Christian) church are usually about the least political around. Yeah, in various blue locations individual churches (Orthodox Church of America, mostly) can be filled with folks who believe their politics trump the Bible, but elsewhere the Greek Orthodox and (oddly) Russian Orthodox churches are very religion-oriented and eschew politics just a much as they possibly can.

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        1. One needs to read the doctrine and compare it to the Bible (or whatever other sources of inspiration they claim). Then pick something less hypocritical than current GOP/Democrat Congress critters.

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          1. Recalls a couple-three ministers at the now-defunct community church. (Friends, with 10-20% of the people actually being Quakers.) Wow. Just Wow. The ex-Episcopal minister with the temper of a pissed-off badger was the least-bad one.

            Protips:
            A) If you manage to move attendance from 30 people to 5-6, you’re doing something wrong. B) If there’s a large number of people in $TINY_TOWN who won’t set foot in the building, Something Went Really Wrong. (Never got details, but the hints!!!)

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      2. Oddly enough, I have not had much trouble with priests at the parishes I’ve attended.

        This may be because they are usually coming in from out of the country (our current priest is Filipino, for instance), and therefore tend to stick to the topic of the Gospel reading pretty strongly. It’s the homegrown ones that tend to go whackadoodle.

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      3. You could always try a Latter-day Saint congregation. ;-) We’re pretty good at remaining apolitical (even if the assumption is that pretty much everyone is conservative, with a heavy dose of libertarian).

        I’m pretty sure you’ll be welcome, even if you don’t give up alcohol and tea; I have to say “pretty sure”, though, because Latter-day Saints are people too, and people in general tend to be judgmental and “cliquey”. I decided a long time ago, though, that I won’t reject a congregation just because no one is willing to approach me and talk to me — in no small part because I’m terribly shy, and have thus accepted that, if I can’t approach other people, I shouldn’t judge others if they don’t approach me! (And it also helps that I’m rather introverted, so I kindof like being left alone in my corner, doodling while attending Sunday School.)

        Having said that, especially after my last visit to BYU just a few days ago, I cannot help but worry a little bit that we’re getting more infested by Marxism than I realize — and because we try hard to be apolitical, I am afraid it’s sneaking in under the radar!

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      4. Once upon a time, my mother decided “enough” and departed her church.

        Mid service, she stood, stated reasons, and strolled to the door. She then stopped, removed her sandals, then proceeded to clap the dust from them loudly and vigorously.

        And out the door she went. (Blues guitar riff imagined)

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  3. I learned more about economics from reading ‘Atlas Shrugged’ than I ever did in school.

    All of our modern problems are the solutions to much worse problems we had in the past. The solution to today’s problems is NOT to bring back yesterday’s problems. Which the Leftroids are hell-bent on doing.
    ———————————
    It is not within the power of any government to increase the value of unskilled labor, only to raise its cost.

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    1. I got a lesson in “Let people pay what they think someone is worth.” on Thursday. My position is being turned into halftime the end of this month, and terminating in February. Have to talk to an employment lawyer about options (I am 64.5 in age) and then negotiate severance from their initial “offering”. I don’t think they know about my job what I know about my job. But at any rate, I’ll be working for someone else this time next year.

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        1. very much this
          Credentialed idiots with no real world knowledge.
          Texas shipping manager position went to a guy with a degree, because “Have to have a degree” so guy with 15 years Haz Mat shipping experience but a GED certainly wasn’t qualified . . . but he wasn’t the one who shipped a 4 drum pallet of Phosphonic Acid, Caustic Potash (2 drums) and 45% Hydrogen Peroxide. They were also shocked when the GED guy left to work for Old Dominion Trucking . . .

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            1. Somewhere in Sodom-on-the-Potomac, maybe a building with a dome? ;-)

              Anyway, shipping it isn’t the issue (bad as that is). The real trick is making sure all 4 drums rupture upon arrival.

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            1. do it right and both loud and rather toxic. Ammonium Hydroxide was in the same shipment, just not on that pallet (it was in metal drums, he didn’t pack metal and plastic on the same pallet, THAT bothered him)

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              2. The people who hired him should be shown videos of the Beirut explosion, all captured angles, on repeat and at full volume, with a continual crawl of “This is what happens when you put a “degree” over actual experience.”

                (I know that’s not what technically happened, but duuuuuude.)

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            1. I was up here by then and I don’t know what it said on the paperwork, but that it was not caught by the truckline doesn’t make for the warm and fuzzies, either.

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          5. The pre-11B ChemEng/Chem student is boggled.

            11B-Mailclerk is giggling, imagining possible recipients.

            Both are saying ” You now have two minutes to reach minimum safe distance.”

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        2. I had a fun lesson in this in 2011. In 2010 I quit my job. Long story. Six months later I get a panicked call from my former manager asking if I would come back.

          Seems someone in upper management decided to just up and fire the entire client-facing team. All of them. 60 odd people, just poof. No warning. This was the group that interfaced with the clients and all the other parts of the company. So in one swoop they eliminated 90% of the communication channels. No files, no payroll, no one for the clients to call if they had a problem.

          When they discovered what this team actually did they begged them to come back, but got no takers.

          The manager begged me to come back, as he was tasked with automating most of what the benefits administration team had done, and they’d given him a week to do it.

          I very carefully did not laugh.

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          1. After telling off an a-hole boss, and giving notice, I never expected to hear from that firm again.

            A few months later, soneone from another branch called to ask if I was interested in similar work.

            SRMGR2: “I was told you were really good.”

            Me: “by who?”

            SRMGR2: “By (a-hole). He said you were a dick, but the best at (job) he ever saw.

            (Pause)

            Me: ” I want (hourly rate, just over ‘ouch’)”

            (Pause)

            SRMGR2: ” He was right. You are a dick. Agreed. Start tomorrow, early.” (Click)

            …

            In hindsight, I should have asked for more. A subsequent re-org put me back to work for A-hole. He stayed clear, so i stayed paid, until I finally decided things has slithered into evil i coukd no longer ignore, and no-notice quit.

            I eventually wound up with current gig, where I just made 20 years.

            Sometimes, unexpected departures are actually success launches.

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              1. I -thought- I was saying “bite the pillow” so they would go away. I later found out how desperate they were, and how little they paid “managers”.

                The checks cleared. I banked what I could. Then, when the snake slithering became too much, out I went.

                “What do you mean you quit? We don’t hire people who -can- quit! You’re broke and riding a bicycle!”

                “Only on sunny days. Didn’t you see that (decent low end car, good paint) out back last weekend in the storm?”

                “That was yours? Shit. I thought it was (srmgr1).”

                “Nope. Bye.”

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                1. I almost managed to ride a bicycle to work. I bought a condominium less than 2 miles from my job.

                  Then got laid off before escrow closed.

                  Had to scramble to find another job before the bank backed out of the mortgage. Wound up working 15 miles away. No bicycle.

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            2. 1996 company I worked for sold division assets to regional companies, one north, one south of us. Then shutdown facilities. Everyone got 1 month layoff notice, 3 months pay, accrued sick and vacation hours, plus 2 weeks / year service, severance, plus extra benefits to assist finding a new position locally, and unemployment (while severance paid out). Other options were to find another position in company at other divisions in other regions (not an option for me without tripling salary + any regional percentage discrepancy, because meant hubby quitting) losing severances. Or going to work for either of the two new companies. The one in the north was a no go (while technically hubby could transfer north, the odds were not good). One in the south was reasonable as long as I didn’t have to move. Moving never came up. Was informed that my skill set was not needed, they had plenty of people to take over what I was doing. This is despite every sub district manager, the division manager, both my current and prior supervisor, and all the production managers/supervisors (logging, field foresters, office), in front of me (not telling me later), letting them know they really were going to need my help. That is the setup.

              Fast forward about 8 months. I am two months in to my new job. Get a call from the southern company on one particular system. Said “Can’t, not available during the week. Who you really need to call is the manager let go when you took over. This isn’t about the software, or how what I did interact. It is about how/why the keys and the system does what it does. For that you need her, not me.” (Free advice.) Pause “No. We need you. How about a Saturday, instead?” Me: “One Saturday isn’t enough. Especially without former manager.” Pause. “No. Just one day. Just you.” Me: “No.” Pause. “Name your price.” Me: “Fine. $250/hour including 3 hours travel, 12 hours minimum.” Pause “We’ll get back to you.” They never called back. ($250/hour is nothing for consulting these days. But this was 1996. Should have asked more. But point made. Not burning any bridges. They did that 8 months before.)

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      2. Software? You can always have them hire you for consulting rates. At 65 you have to pay the medicare rates whether you want them or not. Advantage Plus is a whole lot less than anything else on the open market.

        Note. I’d ask “why?” But not everyone is hubby and I, or my sisters and BIL’s. We are all loving retirement.

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    2. The Leftroids are trying to solve their problem, which is that it’s becoming harder and harder for them to get their sweet sweet fix of Power Over Others. (Which they totally deserve – just ask them.)

      Stop trying to control how others live.

      “That’s crazy talk!”

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    3. I’ve read a woman talking about Atlas Shrugged and how it changed her life.

      It was in the 60’s, she was only one of two people in a hippie-ish household who had a regular job, some of them saw her reading it, commented, and heard her say it was interesting, and soon after she came back from work to find that she was in sole possession of the house. Everyone else, including the other woman with a job, had moved out.

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      1. Rand that effect on some people – including many ‘conservatives’. See the National Review jihad against her for example.

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    4. C and I are rereading Atlas Shrugged—aloud, to each other. Right now we’re in the middle of the last chapter of Part Two, the one that tells the story of the Twentieth Century Motor Company (destroyed by a collectivist “utopian” scheme). It’s disturbing how closely the narrative often fits current news.

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  4. Recently, some idiot on X tweeted “why does Elon get to have as much say in things.”

    I replied, well, he only revolutionized the process of launching payloads into orbit such that his company owns 80% of the market. AND he makes an electric car that tons of people find useful.

    All these marxist sh!ts would rob us of all innovation in service to their “fair” system. Without realizing the only fair thing about human life is death.

    F these idiots.

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  5. Recently, some idiot on X tweeted “why does Elon get to have as much say in things.”

    I replied, well, he only revolutionized the process of launching payloads into orbit such that his company owns 80% of the market. AND he makes an electric car that tons of people find useful.

    All these marxist sh!ts would rob us of all innovation in service to their “fair” system. Without realizing the only fair thing about human life is death.

    F these idiots.

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    1. PayPal and OpenAI, too. Starlink is a subsidiary of SpaceX.

      I guarantee he’s more interesting than the idiot.

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    2. I saw this headline today (Insty, so most of you probably did, too): SpaceX makes record 62nd orbital launch, putting another 21 Starlink satellites into space.

      It is particularly nice that SpaceX set the previous record of 61 last year.

      I’m very happy with my Internet connection bill paying for that. What’s Comcast doing with the same amount of money?

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  6. I was going to suggest a different church and see that someone else did. But, I seriously doubt it would be different.

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      1. Yeah. The one where I sing has started fighting back, but it’s hard. Being very open to new families helps, especially families with small to medium-sized kids. Getting people out of the “Sunday is for kids’ sports” habit is a challenge. (Don’t get me started on “church service projects don’t count for college-applications”, either. And no, those are NOT the main problem, just social symptoms.)

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        1. Why the service hours were performed is not relevant to the lists. When son did his college “community service” lists, he did not mention that they were (mostly) through scouts. Although the separate listed Eagle award should have been a clue. Also listed the annual hours spent working in the Jesse Applegate Historical Graveyard. That it is a private graveyard maintained by, small group of, family members of the wide extended family, which he is a member of, was left off. As were the hours spent picking up liter in national parks. Not all the hours went for Junior Ranger award requirements, he did age out of those, and liter was still picked up. All hours legit. Just not specifically for HS awards or college entrances.

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          1. Apparently for some colleges the motive/organizer for the service work is a disqualification. I can guess which ones, and I’d recommend not sending a child (or tuition money) there.

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            1. recommend not sending a child (or tuition money) there.

              Works for me. Not that we have another child heading for college. All nieces/nephews are done, or almost done, with college. Great-nieces/nephews aren’t headed that way for years, yet (ages 11 – few weeks). (My side anyway. Hubby’s great-nephew took a different route. Whether it helps or not, niece hasn’t reported on FB.) No one else is asking.

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            3. There was the study that proved that 4H membership and, worse, holding leadership positions in it, was a detriment for the Ivy League.

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      2. Since many of the forces used by the Clergy and Marxism are the same, Envy, and Guilt. It is easy for the Clergy to lose sight of the real horrors of Marxism and push it on their congregation as a solution to society’s ills. Many of the priests in Nicaragua pushed for the Marxist Revolution from the pews. Now their churches are being closed and property seized. To all Clergy out there, supporting Marxism is signing your own death warrant. .

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        1. To be fair… The direct problem there is that the dictator has a concubine who is some flavor of evil occultist and anti-Catholic. I mean, the kind of pagan that US pagans and occultists would uninvite. She apparently does mundane crime also.

          But in general, you are definitely correct. She is just the speedrun of what would have happened anyway.

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      3. Not a new thing – one of the parish priests back when dinosaurs roamed the earth and I was going through confirmation in the Golden State had the nickname among the kids of “Father Leningrad” – but I found it depends a bit on location when a bit later I attended masses conducted by a commissioned catholic chaplain on an NAS. “Hey, no socialism-is-Gods-real-Plan! And no pounding on about supporting the grape pickers union every week! Weird!”

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  8. Remember the guy who moved to a new town with no job and $5 and within three months, without applying for official help had a job, a furnished apartment and a beater car?
    ………………………

    “Undercover Billionaire”: First season one very successful billionaire business person who went somewhere where he wouldn’t be known. Small -ish community/city. Goal, start with little money (could have been $5) with the goal to build a company worth $1 million after a year. Could not tell anyone who he was, or what he was doing. Proof that the American Dream is still real. Only edge was he had built successful businesses before, just not from nothing. Fell short of appraised $1M value, by $200k (which he contributed to company, also gave bonuses to people who were instrumental in helping him along the way).

    Second season (interrupted by pandemic), the first person challenged ($1m bet) 3 of his peers to do this too. Difference was he picked each of the cities they were sent to, each got $100 and a used vehicle. Second season wasn’t realistic ($1m+ value after 90 days). I didn’t follow it more than a couple of episodes after it came back.

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    1. Take a respected position or principle
      Poison it.
      Weaponize it.
      Wear its rotting hide while demanding respect

      “You didn’t build that!” is the stinking weaponized hide of I, Pencil

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  11. Depending on your location, but you can find churches that preach the Biblical gospel rather than the social gospel. Minivans in the parking lot is a sign of people with hope for the future. We’ve had good experiences at (two) E-Free churches in different states.

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      1. Evangelical Free Church, not far off the spectrum from the Foursquare guys if you’re familiar with those.

        I attend one. My personal preference is that they stick to Biblical sources. So far, no problem here.

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        1. I used to go to one of those.

          If I remember correctly the denomination is more or less of Scandinavian descent. “Free” because they weren’t the official government churches.

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      1. Most Protestants don’t understand how the average RC parish perfectly illustrates yesterday’s Gospel that we should take up our cross and follow. 😊

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        1. That too. But where we are we have three possible choices (we’re kind of at the confluence of three) and our um …. Gadsden flying neighbors down the street go to St. Francis, which is huge and a working class parish. We might give it a try again. The worst that can be said about that priest is that he’s so ADD he keeps veering at odd angles.
          I was doubtful because “St. Francis” tends to be woke. Not sure why even.
          The other one from the area, I’d suspect very woke, but haven’t tried it yet. Our neighbor behind, the farmer, told me goes there.

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          1. The Franciscans do tend to be a bit loopy, Jesuits too so all the Francis Xavier’s are right out.

            Our parish is OK. We have a Portuguese pastor who is very enthusiastic and a good, simple priest. Our former bishop was sound theologically, but the current one is one of Frankie’s boys.

            Every once in a great while we’ll go to a Latin mass or at the local cloistered Dominican nuns, I’ve always liked the Dominicans.

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            1. I got my MSEE at a college run by Jesuits. “A bit loopy” seems to be praising with faint damns. At least the STEM MS was uncorrupted (circa late 1980s), but the undergrad was already off the planet.

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                2. I’ve heard it said that a Jesuit education either makes firm believers or atheists.

                  My experience concurs. I will say, though, nobody teaches philosophy as well as those guys.

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    1. I walked out of a mass right after 9/11 when the priest blamed us for it. We were living in the UK at the time and he was a real lefty piece of work. My daughter’s Irish dance teacher, fine Derry girl that she was, smacked him right across the face. Wasn’t our regular parish though, he was attached to my daughter’s school. No fear of him there IYKWIM

      Not much later, he ended up defrocked and in the penal system for the usual thing. Surprising no one.

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      1. We walked away from a violently anti-semitic sermon. Older son and I looked at each and walked out. Younger son and husband came out a couple of minutes later.
        No idea what happened to him, but he was the lefty brand of anti-semitism. The Jews are practically Nazis, and Jesus was Palestinian. Bah

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        1. There’s radtrad and then there’s radtrad. The sedevacantists tend to be too far out there for me, though MIL is buried at one of their cemeteries. My experience is that they lack …. charity. I’ve always though that Catholicism is a faith for sinners and they tend to go in for smite the unbelievers a bit too much for me. they’re quite old school Protestant that way, the irony of which is delicious. Les extremes se touchent and all that,

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        2. My MiL’s church got one of those. He threw out the hymnals and brought in ones that not only had Latin chant responses, they were written in that Gregorian chant notation that people who can barely understand modern music notation can’t read at all.

          This is a church in a town where typical Sunday Mass attendance is sub-80 people, with the median age being north of 70, Spanish Mass having a somewhat younger demographic. This did not go over well. My MiL, one of those ladies who generally sticks to a place until the end of time, was considering leaving. At any rate, I was going up for a visit and was intrigued to see this priest… but he wasn’t there. The attending priest gets up to the front and says he will explain everything at the homily. Hoo boy.

          Wellll, it turns out he was both very involved in a radtrad group out of France that felt that Vatican II was invalid and that there was sexual impropriety. And I’m sitting there, thankful that my kids are being typically spacey and that it was at least with an adult (oh, what a horrible thing to be thankful for.) So that was interesting.

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          1. Oh. That’s not the same. This is rad trad in full communion, and not in Latin.
            Our old church has gone that way too.
            For the record, the attendance is much higher and much younger. AND I was reading about it today and found out there is a huge demand for priests who can do old style mass in ENGLISH but most can’t, so it’s being throttled at that level.

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      3. The earnest, progressive Methodist preacher who cut-and-pasted all his favorite authors for his 10th anniversary 9/11 service included a , “Ritual of Penance,” inviting us to meditate on what we might have done to deserve this. He also left time for people to stand and talk about their losses. I used the time to tell him he sounded like an abused spouse,and the reason it happened was people hated us and were jealous.
        My beloved dragged me out because he was afraid I’d rip his lungs out after the service. But two guys thanked me in the parking lot.
        The minister was much better when he spoke his own words.

        Liked by 1 person

  14. All that donated food and money is stolen by the very dictators that are starving their people in the first place.

    And the ‘charities’ know that. They don’t do anything about it because that would cut off their sources of money.
    ———————————
    It surely is a wonderment how the directors of those ‘non-profit charities’ get so F-ing rich…

    Liked by 1 person

  16. One could argue that it’s redundant to preach that Odds should be of another, completely imaginary world that suits them better than this one. A lot of Odds do that already. It’s called science fiction. In another dialect, it’s called fantasy.

    One problem with this is that the chosen imaginary worlds mostly don’t align with the one being preached at us. (There’s a good chance this is a deliberate choice.)

    Not that our imaginary worlds are necessarily impractical. Ask the generation of Heinlein fans who got us to the Moon. My argument for science fiction as a better, more adaptive genre is that it can imagine an improved future that we can then make happen, at least to some degree. It can also imagine a fallen future than we can then bend our efforts to prevent.

    Not saying we’re doing well at that right now, but maybe things can turn around.

    Republica restituendae

    Liked by 1 person

  17. Always worth looking around. I mentioned the church in Tulsa where the pastor cherry-picked Leviticus to try and make the Jubilee all about redistribution of wealth after criticizing Ezra and Nehemiah for not being tolerant and inclusive and welcoming diversity. Found a church the very next week where the greeters met you in relays and the pastor’s sermon after a shooting was about individual choice and free will, not gun control. Looked like a bigger church, too. Certainly a more joyful one.

    Liked by 1 person

  18. Even the early Christian church rapidly gave up on any sort of economic communalism. It’s a nice goal. But Acts details that people started trying to cheat the system almost immediately.

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    2. If you look at Acts 2, you can actually see the reason for the temporary communalism. If was a short-term response to an unexpected large need. There were thousands of new converts after the sermon at Pentecost, most of whom had come from other cities to be in Jerusalem for Passover. International travel being what it was at the time, they stayed until Pentecost because it was just seven weeks later, but most of them (I figure) were planning to go home soon after Pentecost, so they had only brought so much money with them. Now suddenly they hear (and believe) that the Messiah has come, so they delay their planned travel home in order to stay and learn as much as they can about their newfound faith.

      But there’s a problem. The new converts are running out money. They have money back home, most of them, but no way to get it: no ATMs, no Wells Fargo money transfers… So the church in Jerusalem steps up to take care of their new brothers and sisters in the faith. A few months later, many of them have headed home (carrying the message of Jesus with them). There is no longer a huge need in Jerusalem, and so the temporary communalism, that was practiced in response to the sudden need, tapers off.

      And yes, people cheating and being slapped down hard for it was also a factor in the tapering off. But I am convinced that a large part of it was because the need for it was going away, as many of the foreign converts (who didn’t have any local source of income) went back home.

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  19. LOL
    We can’t find one closer than an hour away where they stick to the Word, and stay out of all the relativistic stuff…with my parents in their 80’s, that’s no longer possible.

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    1. You need to have money to stay thin and fit these days. (Or an unusual metabolism; there’s always that.) Modern society is so prosperous that we’ve turned human history on its head.

      Liked by 2 people

  21. I forget which African leader said it, but he summed up why they take help from China by preference (paraphrasing from memory):

    “The Chinese give us roads and bridges. Americans give us lectures.”

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    1. The leaders line their pockets while the “average joes” get tofu dreg construction, if anything, and undercut in any businesses they start based on Chinese imports…

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      1. I’m all in favor of Chine breaking their teeth on Africa for a while. It’s almost as good as if they tried to swallow Afghanistan.

        Now, if only we could get out of the game…

        Liked by 1 person

      1. This. Plus how much money and material is being stolen diverted, or and subpar material is being used, so that the roads and, more critically, bridges are majorly critically subpar?

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        1. I’m now picturing the convent scene in Monty Python’s Holy Grail, only with the chant replaced with “A scolding! A scolding”

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  22. Marxism is a religion based on envy, Indeed Marxism is a religion that pretty much endorses and indoctrinates people in the the exact opposite of the Ten Commandments.

    Of course on economics, the left is always delusional and worse, often believe their own delusions. Just look at the Democrats. They genuinely believe that the reason their policies and ideology are so unpopular are either due to “bad marketing”, and that only if they sold their policies better, people would adore them, or due to evil intent of their political opponents, who they deem to be inherently evil “enemies of the state” who must be eradicated.

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    1. But most don’t see bad marketing as a possibility. Their plans are perfect. It’s why you see all the stuff about “vaccine hesitation” and such. Their marketing is perfect, if only those pesky humans would stop pushing back! Their failures are always someone else’s fault.

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      1. My bride was in a public health class in ’21, and was shocked at how thoroughly public relations/propaganda it was. The presumption among instructor and many students seemed to be that they had The Correct Answers(TM) from on high, and simply had to persuade/pitch/push/punish people into doing the right things. Not only was tradeoff not in their vocabulary, even the concepts of credibility and reputation were foreign. Medical reversals take too long for their attention spans, I guess.

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      1. But you do have the gift of encouragement. And I am still very grateful for “On Christmas Day In The Morning” from last year.

        So you don’t need to preach to them. Just keep preaching to us, s’il vous plaît.

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  25. Here, I found something interesting:

    Pay particular attention to his description of the ‘Dark Tetrad’ of left-wing authoritarian personality traits. Sound like anybody we know? I can think of more than a dozen examples without hardly trying. Fauxi and Newsome, for starters.

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  26. As a Presbyterian in a faithful local church, with a weird pastor who is a social liberal, but born again charismatic. So the libs think he is one of them, but he has his own blindness. He never reads from the Old book, except for psalms.

    I am blessed with having been raised by a saint, (my grandmother, who got me born again at 4) So I read a chapter from the bible each day, pray, hear God in poetry. I don’t speak in tongues worth a damn, but when I prayed for a gift of the spirit, he gave me the gift of prophetic poetry. God speaks poetic. His are better than mine. This explains my online name.

    Our local church is trapped in the apostate PCUSA, but is a faithful to Jesus church. As an elder, I get to go to the local Presbytery meeting and vote, and speak. This is one advantage of Protestant churches for lay people. A Presbytery is supposed to be an equal number of ministers and lay elders voting. A Presbyterian Presbytery serves the same function as a Catholic Bishop. The idea of the priesthood of all belivers.

    We had the chance to escape from the clutches of the PCUSA, but it would have required a substanital ransom/ You can imagine the value of several acres of Mordor west land. So for a small church it would be impossible to pay. However, since I get to go to Presbytery and speak, I can stand up and speak the Truth. So being a faithful remnant can be a blessing Perhaps standing in a pew…

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    1. If you do it right, they pay you to go away.

      They, of course, won’t tell you how. But “enthusiastic participant” can do it if a) your team knows the Scripture and b) your intelligence team can gather the needed info on the opposition.

      Heh.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. That’s what the senior Presbyterian church here did. “Hi. We’re leaving. Here are our attorneys. Here’s the most we will pay. Now you talk.” Except more formally. The Methodist churches here could depart in peace with their property IF they were paid up on apportionments and pensions. And pretty much all those who wanted to depart WERE paid up, and departed.

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  27. I’m not sure that it’s true that no one is celebrating gangbangers. It rather seems to me that the entire musical genre of rap is largely devoted to glorifying them. I’m occasionally reminded of what I’ve read about early Indo-European panegyrics of war leaders, before they were sublimated into the Iliad and the Mahabharata.

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    1. And that glorification of “gangsta” is Taz-biting the donks solidly on the ass.

      Turns out multiple indictments and bullshit charges “The Man Out To Get You” are Big-G street cred. When Trump reported to court, his convoy rolled through “the hood”. Hundreds, maybe thousands, waved and cheered.

      All Black.

      “N###as for Trump” is a thing.

      For the Donks, this is looming catastrophe. If those folks vote for Felonious-T it is bad enough. If they start voting R on the down-ballot, the Donks are totally effed, no grease.

      Thus FICUS welding open the border gates. A fools move, induced by panic. Because Cletus and Leroy now have common cause, and it ain’t Donkey.

      And amusingly, bust-a-gut funny? The folks fleeing here often respect, greatly, the Strongman, not the shitweasels.

      In a generation, “Democrat” may be as well known as “Whig”.

      Liked by 1 person

  28. You might want to think about a new church. The one in this article sounds as if the pastor has trouble elucidating the configuration of the material world, and I would not trust his or her interpretation of the spiritual.

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  29. One of our pastors had a lecture on systemic racism in America during the Summer of Mostly Peaceful Protests (it was also the Summer of Romans 12, don’t ask). Which wouldn’t have been too bad, except he was trying to relate how his upbringing in Kansas and Oklahoma showed how racist our country is because of what he saw there and then. Dude (his name) is in his 70s. Not only didn’t this area have Jim Crow laws, but what he was using as examples has not only been illegal for decades, but wasn’t ever much of a thing around here, let alone now.

    Liked by 1 person

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