Both Thomas Jefferson and John Adams died on the 4th of July, 1826. Though both men were on their deathbeds, each made an effort through the night of the third to survive until the 50th anniversary of the Declaration. Adams had bulletins sent to him on Jefferson’s condition and Jefferson woke in the small hours of the third to ask, “is it the Fourth?” The attending physician replied “it soon will be.” There was nothing funereal about the scene. It was as if both old men were on a last race; as if beneath the withered exteriors were two strong runners were striving for the tape. That would have surprised no one in a culture where natural death, whose face had not yet been hidden behind high hospital walls, impelled men to be more generous with their lives and less fearful of risk than the prospect of failure.
In a time where infectious disease and accidents were both common and unavoidable, the ultimate privilege was the ability to order one’s life and — more rarely — one’s death according to choice. So the chance to “mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor” for such stakes would have seemed an opportunity that did not come very often in the generations of men. The Founders seized the chance and paid the price. Some were captured by the British as traitors; others lost life and property during the revolutionary war. And in return they received not a jot of additional existence; their group lifespan was 67; average for men of their position in that era. But they did achieve what seemed worthwhile then; something worth remembering so that fifty years later the last of their fellows would ask after it. Nicholas Trist, who was at Jefferson’s deathbed on the Third pretended not to hear Jefferson’s question “so he wouldn’t have to inform Jefferson that it was still July 3 … ‘This is the Fourth?’ he asked again. This time Trist nodded in assent, though he says he found the deception ‘repugnant.’”
Daniel Webster, who came on the scene after the Founding Fathers had already passed into legend lamented that “we can win no laurels … earlier and worthier hands have gathered them all.” But he was wrong; history comes back offering each new generation a new set of heights to climb. In that sense the Declaration of Independence will forever remain unfinished business; an enterprise well begun which has not quite been completed. So perhaps the scrupulous Trist should not have worried about deceiving Jefferson; the honest answer to the question “is it the Fourth?” both in 1826 and 2010 may remain “it soon will be”.
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Cleanup workers have taken over parts of town, including a public beach where the parking lot is now a staging area.
Accompanied by her four grown sons and their families, Teri Bahr surveyed the odd scene on the beach and saw a picture of American decline caused by too much reliance on government and too little personal responsibility.
“I think this is a sign of how weak we are. We are weak militarily, socially and economically,” said Bahr, a retired school counselor from Overland Park, Kan. “People’s priorities are out of whack. They don’t take care of their children, they don’t take care of anything.”
(…ellipse
“A good plumber might work better instead of all these scientists,” said Andre Betts, 49, an oil spill response worker directing barges in southern Louisiana.
Chris Dargusch, who lives part-time in Seaside and Columbus, Ohio, said the spill was a tragedy that could motivate Americans to get the country back on track. Here’s Dargusch’s take: The citizens whom BP’s chairman famously called “the small people” need to unite — to clamp down on powerful corporations, hold government more accountable and stiffen environmental regulations.
“The small people are this country,” she said.
Despite all the frustration and negative navel-gazing, though, the American DNA is resilient and deeply stamped with the belief that a bad situation can, with the right elbow grease and ingenuity, be turned around.
At a holiday parade in Seaside, Fla., a lime-green Jeep festooned with red, white and blue streamers and balloons had a handmade sign taped to the door: “Let Freedom Ring,” it said. “The message,” its driver said as she passed by, “is don’t give up.”
snipped from On July 4 In Spill Country, Pondering America
by The Associated Press
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128304798
For, dear me, why abandon a belief
Merely because it ceases to be true.
Cling to it long enough, and not a doubt
It will turn true again, for so it goes.
Most of the change we think we see in life
Is due to truths being in and out of favour.
-R. Frost, The Black Cottage
Re Buddy # 1
“The American DNA is resilient and deeply stamped with the belief that a bad situation can, with the right amount of elbow grease and ingenuity, be turned around.”
Very well said Buddy. Bravo.
July 3 is also the anniversary of Pickett’s Charge and the last day of the battle of Gettysburg. Here is some archival footage from the 75th anniversary reunion (1938) of veterans from both sides:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgLUmiRLqW8&feature=related
Interesting to note that we are almost as far removed in time from 1938 as those veterans were from their first encounter in 1863.
America was founded by a practical nation of people who choose “the simplest solution.” Whether in designing furniture or laying out the case for dissolving a political contract a clear spare and focused approach was preferred. How different, how Un-American it is to tie down every act with regulations that take into account every extraneous private interest and impose them on individuals through the coercive power of government. The government by becoming a representative and advocate for some imposes their interests upon others. The personal becomes political. Those who have the interests of some imposed on them become not individuals solving problems as simply and effectively as possible in free association with others but at best contractors seeking to have their services approved by a central mediating contracting or hiring hall authority.
The government must be constrained lest it eat everything. To that end we attempted to chain it down by prohibiting the government from imposing a religious test on office holders or taxing to support a State Church. We prohibited the government from restricting freedom of speech or of the press or restricting the right to keep and bear arms. We restricted the right of a State to regulate interstate commerce and gave no power to the federal government to regulate commerce within a state. Only when the XIVth Amendment was discovered by ambitious jurists did those restrictions on the government become transformed into tools that can be used by government or individuals appealing to the favor of government to impose on private citizens.
In the Kagan hearings the nominee for the Supreme Court evaded a question as to whether the government has the power to make people eat their vegetables and not any desired trans-fats. We now have people who would appeal to these mythical rights to impose on every transaction that should be between consenting adults by private mutual consent. That includes efforts to tell a blog owner what subjects he should provide a forum for discussing and who he may communicate with and under what circumstances.
The men of the Revolution, there were ladies involved also but I shall use the inclusive grammar of a different age, did not always agree. In fact many of them cordially disliked each other. They always however respected each others privacy and it would never have crossed their minds to appeal to the power of the State to enforce their private interests. The unending tangle that slavery brought to America was not only the moral stain involved but also that it compelled the constant intrusion of appeals to government to sustain what otherwise was an unnatural imposition on a political and social system of otherwise free and open choices between individuals meeting each others needs.
Daniel Webster, who came on the scene after the Founding Fathers had already passed into legend lamented that “we can win no laurels … earlier and worthier hands have gathered them all.” But he was wrong; history comes back offering each new generation a new set of heights to climb. In that sense the Declaration of Independence will forever remain unfinished business; an enterprise well begun which has not quite been completed.
Respectfully I would have to disagree with Mr. Webster. Liberty in America was an unfinished project when the Founders passed, and many of them knew it. In the Declaration, they had kicked the can of emancipation of slaves down the road, because independence from Britain had to come first and they could not get a unanimous vote from all 13 colonies if the slavery issue was on the table. So the anti-slavery clause in an early draft of the Declaration got jettisoned:
He [King George III] has waged cruel War against human Nature itself, violating its most Sacred Right of Life & Liberty in the Persons of a distant People who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into Slavery in another Hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their Transportation thither. This piratical Warfare, the opprobrium of infidel Powers, is the Warfare of the Christian King of Great Britain. He has prostituted his Negative for Suppressing every legislative Attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable Commerce, determining to keep open a market where MEN should be bought & sold, and that this Assemblage of Horrors might want no Fact of distinguished Die, he is now exciting those very People to rise in Arms among us, and to purchase that Liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people upon whom he also obtruded them; thus paying off former Crimes committed against the Liberties of one People, with Crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another.
In 1852, Frederick Douglass delivered a stinging rebuke to an audience in Rochester, reminding Americans about that unfinished project:
What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July?
I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants, brass-fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are, to Him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy — a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages.
Personally, I consider the Declaration to be more like a mission statement than a “mission accomplished” statement. Because clearly it wasn’t, not in 1776, not in 1852, not even in 1865 after 600,000+ dead in what many considered an event of national expiation.
Lincoln put it thus: America was and is “dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” Dedicated to the proposition. In the absence of fully accomplishing the ideas laid out in the Declaration (and let’s be honest, so long as men are men and not angels, the ideas will never be fully and permanently accomplished), the thing is to remain dedicated to them. And not to let the bashers demoralize and derail us from the project.
Stop to consider: Has there ever been, in the history of the planet, “any nation so conceived and so dedicated”?
Never.
It was, perhaps, rather foolish and (forgive the language) b@llsy for America to set perfection as the mission: the safeguarding and free exercise of God-given rights, of every single individual within her body. Because it’s the individual who matters, the individual who becomes the measuring standard of liberty, the project does become rather like herding cats, or nailing jello to a wall. Establish a proper restraint on government over here, but over there someone just got hammered by a regulation or court ruling. Constant vigilance. The work never ends. And all the while, the bashers hector and condemn “the hypocrisy” because someone, somewhere, is getting the short end of the stick.
Maybe it would have been better if the Founders had included disclaimers in the Declaration and Constitution, something to the effect that fifty-fifty on the created equal bit and the individual liberty thing should be considered good enough? Win some, lose some? “We’d prefer to say ‘Congress shall pass no law’ here, but since we all know that Congress will muck this up, be prepared to live with some laws of this nature. Yes, we know it stinks, but whadda you want, breakfast in bed with a flower arrangement?”
Lowering expectations might have forestalled some, even much, of the criticism. But the ideas, the propositions, would have been badly cut jewels. As they chose to do it, knowing that they were laying out something unattainable, that their reach exceeded their grasp, they gave us glorious diamonds.
The thing is to remain dedicated to the proposition.
A YANKEE DOODLE DANDY
A surgeon in the British army, poking fun at the rude colonial boys playing at being officers and gentlemen, wrote a ditty called Yankee Doodle, describing a yokel putting a feather in his cap and calling it macaroni, a reference to British military slang that referred to gold braid as macaroni, as we now call gold braid scrambled eggs. The rude colonial boys turned the tables and proudly proclaimed themselves Yankee Doodle, giving rise to George M. Cohan’s famous song. But Cohan went further than that. His song You’re A Grand Old Flag was a tremendous hit, and the first piece of sheet music to sell over a million copies. Both songs are now part of the national consciousness. The following is homage to George M. Cohan, a true Yankee Doodle Dandy.
Yes, she’s a grand old flag
A high flying flag
And forever and ever she’ll wave
And we take great pride
In the men who died
To keep this the home of the brave
We’ve been tried before
In bad times and war
And we’ve always come through in the end
For the stars and stripes
Lead the drums and pipes
In the march down the street, round the bend
To the promised land
That the brothered band
Left to us by their service to all
Yes they died for the flag
For that high flying flag
May we always have brave men on call
As a nation our faith in the government is weakening. I pray our faith in Jesus Christ will strengthen our nation.
f/3; –thanks feeble, but i just quoted it from that link –i pulled two snips that sorta boxed the compass –
***
w/7; just great walt –have you ever seen the Cagney movie –where a young Cagney plays Cohan? It’s a double-barrel ‘i love America’ because the film, made about a past patriot, stars what’s now a past patriot too –i mean, Cohan could’ve made a film about Cagney but for the timeline –
***
bw/6; The thing is to remain dedicated to the proposition
hear hear! stay with that and we can’t go far wrong –
On July 3, 1940 Prime Minister Winston Churchill ordered the Royal Navy to destroy the French fleet in North Africa. This action was precipitated by a French-German Armistice. Winnie and the British command feared that the French navy, second only to the Brits in warships operating in the European war zone could be used by the Germans to destroy Great Britain.
On July 4, Churchill made a speech to the House of Commons in which he lambasted the United States for failing to enter the war to defend freedom. Churchill wanted 50 ships to bolster its control of the sea, but Roosevelt was being fed lies by US Ambassador Joseph Kennedy who told Roosevelt that the Nazis were no threat to America and Britain was about to lose the war. Roosevelt even went so far as to suggest that Churchill send the Royal Navy to Canada to keep it out of German hands … a move that could only benefit the United States.
Long story short, the French ship Captains were given six hours to set a course to a British port or be sunk. They were sunk with heavy loss of French lives. Vice-Admiral Sir James Somerville, who had helped rescue over 100,000 Frenchmen during the evacuation at Dunkirk, led the Royal Naval armada.
Two month’s later, the Royal Navy grew from the addition of 50 US warships.
http://gerryporter.blogspot.com/2010/07/winston-churchills-july-4-message-to.html
Governor Schwarzenegger issued an apology to the public for the dufuss decision last week by some CALTRANS officials to paint over a patriotic U.S. flag mural that had been painted shortly after the 9-11 attack. Evidently the flag mural had been a feature of the landscape which had not been upsetting hundreds of thousands of drivers seeing it every week for the last nine years as they passed it near Sunol, CA.
Try to imagine the towering petty perversity – the INVERTED PC LOONINESS – of the sort of bureaucratic woodpecker head who regards the image of the flag of the country that he lives in, sitting on a bit of highway concrete owned and administered by the government of the state in which he lives, and says:
“We don’t allow graffiti on state property… No matter what kind of graffiti it is, we don’t show favoritism.”
[quoted from the San Jose Mercury News, in the linked article]
This is just a sample of the sort of self-mutilating insanity that has been driving the productive residents and businesses AWAY from California, which until recently was one of the ten largest economies in the world.
That’s the California I know and love.
And that’s just one of many of the crazy things that drove me away.
MF @ 11: The governator’s apology is not enough. I want CalTrans employees in that area – on their own time and dime – to repaint that flag right back where it was. Until that occurs I’ve stopped “slowing for the cone zone”. The rest of you can do what you want, but imo one or more of theirs screwed up and they can fix it or else be prepared to “dodge” faster.
re CalTrans — while this was happening in the European and Pacific theaters in August 1944, this was happening on the home front. TIME in 1944, calls it ‘race trouble’ –but it was actually ‘union trouble’.
Today’s news that Christopher Hitchens has been diagnosed with esophageal cancer reminded me of something a doctor once said: “it’s always best to know”. Is that true? And what is there to know? A diagnosis provides more certain information about something we all know is going to happen to us. But in this case the more certain information is not always welcome knowledge. The chief punishment of a man on death row and the principal source of anxiety in a person diagnosed with a serious disease seems to stem from knowledge. Knowledge is torment; give a man ignorance of his fate and he’s carefree. Tell him exactly when it will end and you ruin his life.
Sometimes people use this knowledge to shape their end. In grade school I had a classmate who told me a story about his grandfather, Jose Abad Santos, who turned out to be the Chief Justice during the Japanese occupation. He had been given the choice between renouncing his oath of allegiance to the United States — and being rewarded by high office — or execution. His last recorded words seemed perverse to me until much later. He told his son “do not cry, Pepito, show to these people that you are brave. It is an honor to die for one’s country. Not everybody has that chance.” Only later when I had discarded the illusion of youthful immortality did I realize that Abad Santos was one of the few people who could actually choose his end. He could write his epitaph and he did.
Knowledge has its uses, and not just for heroes. An aunt who survived the Battle of Manila died two years ago of lung cancer but it was only three weeks ago, when we were by accident playing an old amateur recording of hers, that I heard the details of her passing. The end when it came, was relatively swift. There was a brief period of delirium when she saw her parents coming for her and around this time a man in his nineties turned up, someone from the long-lost past, and made his way past the circle of her grieving children. She looked up and said “I will marry you now if you want me to”. He shook his head and said, “there’s no need.” Then he then turned and left with one last word spoken in the Spanish of their youth. Adios mi amor.
It is hard to remember that the old were young once, and harder still to understand how completely enveloped we are in the world that they created. After listening to the story I turned up the volume of my aunt singing. She sang the lyrics of a Chilean pop star who had been popular in the 1950s.
Maybe it’s always best to know and use the time.
It is hard to remember that the old were young once, and harder still to understand how completely enveloped we are in the world that they created.
This came to mind when I read that Ringo Starr turned 70 last week. Oh, when I was young, how antique the names of Glen Miller and Benny Goodman seemed to me! All around me were aunts and uncles and others whose youthful enthusiasms were bound in that music. And now I’ve reached the chronological point on the road from which they looked back.
And now I and my wife, children of the 60′s, watch Lawrence Welk reruns on PBS, mostly because we see in the audience “old” people, reliving what was their “60′s,” but one in which their generation endured hardship and saved the world from fascism. In them I’m seeing a generation that earned the right to be out on that dance floor. Marvelous.
Wretchard,
I was first hit with the awareness that the old were once young when I was in high school. I went once a week in the summer with a Junior Red Cross group to a VA hospital, where I was assigned to fill water bottles, run errands for the nurses, and help feed some of the patients on the women’s ward. Most patients were WWI nurses and couldn’t communicate much. But there was one who liked to talk about her wartime experiences, and they weren’t those one hears about in history class. She told of things like flirting with the doctors, exactly the same interests I had as a 15 year old (I think that’s about when Ben Casey was a TV hit). Had I met her on the street, I would have pegged her as an old woman, but I experienced her in the context of a whole life. History has never been quite the same for me, and I’ve become a bit more grateful for the times I have experienced.
“clock stop your journey
for my life is gone
she was the star
that lit my being
without her i am nothing”
***
(i changed ‘you’ to ‘her’ to make pronouns agree –possibly an insult to a meaning i missed)
#10 Galdfly
“On July 3, 1940 Prime Minister Winston Churchill ordered the Royal Navy to destroy the French fleet in North Africa. This action was precipitated by a French-German Armistice. Winnie and the British command feared that the French navy, second only to the Brits in warships operating in the European war zone could be used by the Germans to destroy Great Britain.”
“Although the hypothesis of a surrender of the French navy to the Germans had not been proved, had even been contradicted by facts, by the documents and informations which the Admiralty possessed, it served as a pretext for a pre-emptive action to which as much publicity as possible was given. Through a manipulation of the War Cabinet, Churchill took upon himself the right to pass a verdict.”
“In spite of the undeniable success of this media manipulation carried out by Churchill, a master in the genre, there is today a majority of commentators who say that Mers-el-Kebir was a serious mistake that greatly prejudiced the allied cause. A proof lies in those great voices that have been heard on the British side trying to stop this dishonourable action, to begin with admiral Somerville himself.”
“the French ship Captains were given six hours to set a course to a British port or be sunk. They were sunk with heavy loss of French lives. Vice-Admiral Sir James Somerville, who had helped rescue over 100,000 Frenchmen during the evacuation at Dunkirk, led the Royal Naval armada.”
“Under the torrid sun of an Algerian summer, a somewhat surrealistic and at the same time pathetic negociation starts between the British who have serious doubts over the cogency of the orders they have been given, and the French who cannot believe that their friends of yesterday are going to fire upon them. At 17:30 (British time), after shuttling several times between the port and Force H, Captain Holland, who negociated with admiral Gensoul on behalf of the British, left the Dunkerque for the last time, deeply affected by the failure of his negociations. He had been running short of time since the British Admiralty, eager to come to a conclusion, had kept urging Somerville to engage hostilities. Crossing the bow of the battleship Bretagne he can see the officer of the watch saluting him and French sailors waiving to him : they do not know that within half an hour they will be dead… ”
http://bruxelles2.over-blog.com/ext/http://amedenosmarins.over-blog.com/ext/http://www.ledrame-merselkebir.fr/
L’ultimatum britannique : 4 possibilités d’échapper à la frappe destructrice
Les Britanniques envoient au vice-amiral qui commande l’escadre française, Marcel Gensoul, un message par le biais du capitaine Holland, ancien attaché naval à Paris, porteur de 4 possibilités:
a) prendre la mer avec nous et continuer à combattre jusqu’à la victoire contre les Allemands;
b) se rendre dans un port anglais avec des équipages réduits placés sous nos ordres. Les équipages seront rapatriés au plus tôt;
Dans les deux cas, les Britanniques s’engagent à “rendre les vaisseaux à la France dès la fin de la guerre ou (la) dédommager pleinement si, dans l’intervalle, ils venaient à être endommagés”.
c) gagner ensemble avec des équipages réduits, un port français des Antilles (Martinique par exemple) où ils pourront être démilitarisés de façon satisfaisante pour nous, ou être confiés aux Etats-Unis (alors pays neutre), et préservés jusqu’à la fin de la guerre;
d) saborder vos vaisseaux dans les six heures à venir.
The stakes were that the french nseemen should have brought their vessels to a Brit Harbour, then leave them to the British Navy, and return home.
This could never have been accepted by french seemen, if they had joined the Brits Navy, they wanted to remain on their ships.
Anyway, Churchill knew that his deal was impossible to reach in a few hours, and he already had decided to destroy the french ships even before that the discussions started.
http://bruxelles2.over-blog.com/article-il-y-a-70-ans-mers-el-kebir-ou-l-incomprehension-franco-britannique-53326415.html
I believe Islam is also tyranny at war with human nature. Jefferson was absolutely correct, that humans naturally seek freedom in every society everywhere. Islam, like all tyrannical belief systems, seek to squelch all types of freedom on one pretext or another.
MC, This could never have been accepted by french seemen
A conjecture. No one asked them. Gensoul knew. You know what his sin was?
Pride.
the Anti Jihadist, Jefferson was correct, but not absolutely. There are societies that do not have the concept of freedom as we understand it. Moreover, even in our free society, there are people that are afraid of freedom, because that implies responsibility. They are at home in a hierarchical structure that brings certitude and requires only reflective patterning.
Thought you should know.
MC, thje Vichy evened the bodycount tho, opposing the Operation Torch landings –lotsa Anglos left on the beach before the Vichy struck the colors –of course they had to put up an initial fight –families back home under the Gestapo boot and all –
W/14–Boy! Talk about a flashback! That song “Reloj” was very popular in Mexico in 1958, when I was attending summer school there. We sang it at every serenade.
BL/17–you got the tense wrong; it’s “she is the star … ” and “lights up my life …”
Re oldyoung: once at a family reunion I noticed my son staring hard at the interaction between my 2 year-old granddaughter and my wife’s aged aunt.
He said: “You know, I just now realized that she (pointing to the aunt) was once that young and some day she (the little girl) will be that old.”
This was my pastor’s serman yesterday. He quotes Dostoevsky and Whitfield in the same piece. (Whitfield was one of the principles in what was called the first Great Awakening in the USA during 1750′s.)
The Church’s Role in Helping America
gordon, thanks –i see it now –but the pronoun in the last line –why would he change from singing ‘about’ her for three lines, and then ‘to’ her in the last line?
charles, that’s a brilliant pair set –compliments to the pastor –
For some words from Mr. Jefferson on the subject of the 4th, see http://www.intellectualactivist.com/php-bin/news/showArticle.php?id=1214.
Breitbart has a new Web Portal:
“Big Peace: The July 4th Happy Birthday to America Launch!”
This effort will drive another nail in the coffin of the Lame Stream Media. They will no longer be able to hide or distort important issues of our National Security and Foreign Policy from the American Public. It is fitting that it was launched on our Republic’s 234th birthday.
God Bless America
Papa Ray
It is hard to remember that the old were young once, and harder still to understand how completely enveloped we are in the world that they created.
It goes against certain philosophies to realize that things are not automatic, but were created by the old, whether for convenience or at great sacrifice, by accident or dogged effort. In any case, without continued effort and maintenance, things do indeed fall apart. It is mostly a conservative virtue to appreciate this, and a liberal fault. In fact, these are the quintessential aspects of the two sides.
Of course there are converses – the conservative fights improvement, and the liberal will fix things that are broken. That is why it is always in the balance.
BL/27–”yo sin su amor no soy nada”–”without her love I am nothing/I am nothing without her love”.
“Su” refers to her, about her; if he were talking to her, being his lover, he would’ve said “tu”: “without your love, I am nothing”; he wouldn’t have been talking to her about love and use the more formal “su”.
So he’s still talking about her, fits the rest of the verse. Right now I’m fighting to remember the other verses; I know there was at least one more.
ah, ok, its coming back now –haven’t used it in years –other lines, copy/paste the four you have in a search window and see what pops up –internet takes music very quantitatively seriously –\?
BL/32: well, I’m fortunate to be in a volunteer position where I speak nothing but Spanish almost 4 hrs weekly so I’m really brushed up.
Here’s the whole thing; take a crack if you wish. I will myself in a later post:
El Reloj lyrics–
Reloj no marques las horas
Porque voy a enloqueser
Ella se ira para siempre
Cuando amanesca otra vez
Nomas nos queda esta noche
Para vivir nuestro amor
Y tu tick tack me recuerda
Mi inremediable dolor
[this is the chorus]
Reloj deten tu camino
Porque mi vida se apaga
Ella es la estrella que alumbra mi ser
Yo sin su amor no soy nada
Deten el tiempo en tus manos
As esta noche perpetua
Para que nunca se baya de mi
Para que nunca amanesca
Nomas nos queda esta noche
Para vivir nuestro amor
Y tu tick tack me recuerda
Mi inremediable dolor
[another chorus, or bridge maybe]
Reloj deten tu camino
Porque mi vida se apaga
Ella es la estrella que alumbra mi ser
Yo sin su amor no soy nada
Deten el tiempo en tus manos
As esta noche perpetua
Para que nunca se baya de mi
Para que nunca amanesca
Para que nunca amanesca
OT blogpost,
Comment on AP via Breitbart: “Census worker taken to court for trespassing”: http://bit.ly/cTglzP
Saltlick – Josh
“And now I and my wife, children of the 60’s, watch Lawrence Welk reruns on PBS, mostly because we see in the audience “old” people, reliving what was their “60’s,” but one in which their generation endured hardship and saved the world from fascism. In them I’m seeing a generation that earned the right to be out on that dance floor. Marvelous.”
I’m reminded by your comment of my parents and myself, when in the early sixties my Mama showed me pictures of herself and my Dad and their activities when they were younger back in the twenties, thirties and fortys.
My Dad didn’t get to serve because of his eyesight and hearing which were damaged due to him working at a quarry of some kind when he was a teen. My Mama did work for the Salvation Army and other charities on and off all of her teen and early years and told of the hardships suffered by most in east Texas during those years before and during the world wars.
Those intimate and sometimes startling hours that she shared with me over those old pictures are some of my fondest and most treasured. My Dad only commented on a few of the pictures because (I much later understood) he had survivors guilt and shame that he could not serve. His brother, uncle and grand father had all served and all of them had gave their last and final measure to our Republic. To this day I regret that he would not share or tell me of these ancestors of mine. He said it was just too hard for him.
Now I am old and have written thousands of words about what I know of all of this and of my own life. I have it on different electronic media and have printed out almost a small book. All in order to pass on to my grand kids and their children. Family history needs to be preserved and passed generation to generation.
I sometimes wish I had been as happy, complete and satisfied with my life as I am now, but life is not fair and who ever told you it was…was lying.
Growing old has its rewards and adventures. I treasure most and just try to accept the rest.
Papa Ray
heh –gordon i may let you do it –if i try, i might end up calling the ex and off on one a them damn carnival cruises again enduring her blistering folk tales of what i did wrong
I lost three aunts this year. 103, 97 and 88. All passed with great dignity, one with great suffering. I was privileged to be with the eldest when her time came. People of that generation or maybe that age are less afraid of death. Or more sure of what is to come. I think its the latter.
I dont hear in the stories of Adams and Jefferson an expression of fear. I know that the received wisdom is that Jefferson was some sort of non-conformist at best and perhaps an atheist. I sort of doubt the latter. He was too smart for that. Adams was a Christian. I suspect after they were reconciled that they discussed the matter. Adams could be persuasive. And the fact remains that they both went with the dignity becoming their status.
wretchard
… a doctor once said: “it’s always best to know”. Is that true?
A Rabbi once said “The truth shall make you free.” Personally I want to know. What else makes us human and proves that we are still alive?
My suspicion is that there has been a change in the attitude of doctors that mirrors larger changes in society. At one time physicians were Prussian authority figures. They decided what was good for their patients, told them what they wanted to and prescribed medication and performed procedures as suited their own judgment. Many sought the god-like power and respect that came with this. Most performed admirably and a few did not. Given the primitive level of knowledge that most doctors had until recently they relied to varying degrees on the respect they commanded to bluff their patients. The cost to them was the possibly crushing burden of responsibility and the gnawing sense of inevitable failure.
Now it is easier for the doctors. They are gaining new tools and shedding an emotional burden.
First they actually are gaining some ability to understand and combat disease. The next 20 years may see a revolution in health care greater than anything since the days of Pasteur and Lister. That is to say it might happen if government administration, corruption, and the impoverishment of our society under the control of rapacious oligarchs leave sufficient resources to pursue the promised cures.
Second the shift from seeing them as personal authority figures to mere functionaries in a politically supervised Health Care System may be welcomed by many doctors. Now the question of what to tell the patient is lifted off the practitioner’s shoulders and and transferred to a Best Practices Committee.
Paging Dr Irons and the other BC Ascelpian Irregulars.
herb,
God bless. With advertising like that I want to know your gene pool. Any single girls?
To be blogged under the title “Knowing.”
I possess an odd gift. Occasionally and without will my eye will set upon an oldster’s face. Then my mind’s-eye will smooth wrinkles, whiten teeth and darken hair. My mind will conjure an image of them in their vigorous youth. With the young the reverse happens too, but not as often. When this process occurs I’ve never given it much thought except as reminder that who we are/were/will be is not how we now appea. Even so, I’m also reminded that with the change of years deep within that person are elements unchangeable and true.
Upon first thought Wretchard, I judged that the Japanese gave your friend’s grandfather (in the midst of their cruelty) a tremendous gift. I thought they gave him the opportunity for a death of meaning and import. But after further reflection I realized it wasn’t his death that gave his life significance. It must have been his life that brought meaning to his death. I still believe his choice of death was significant but not as memorial to a man, instead as a comfort and beacon to others.
In my hubris, when it’s my time I pray my death will have similar effect. But I am not the one to judge am I?
Still round the corner there may wait
A new road or a secret gate,
And though we pass them by today,
Tomorrow we may come this way
And take the hidden paths that run
Towards the Moon or to the Sun.
A Walking Song sung by Frodo, Sam and Pippin, as they set off for Buckland
With some irony, we might note that the reported last words of John Adams were, “Thomas Jefferson still survives.” (he had actually died many hours earlier)
Years earlier, as he was moving into the White House, Adams wrote to his wife, “Before I end my letter, I pray Heaven to bestow the best of Blessings on this House and all that shall hereafter inhabit it. May none but honest and wise Men ever rule under this roof.”
H/37: I have read that Jefferson, Washington, and other prominent men of the time were often Deists, for which I gather there is no precise definition, and that they saw Christianity as a profound source of ethical and moral teaching but not the theology or mystical content. I think the Jefferson Bible reflects that.
2=4, Buddy
No, it rather shows the Brits’ perfidy. Gensul wasn’t the big boss of the french Navy, but Darlan, that constructed this navy since a few decades (like Churchill for the Brits’). Gensul had to refer to his big boss before taking a decision, that wasn’t joinable at the moment, Paul Reynaud’s government was packing from Bordeaux, some clerics and Ministers for goods, the others for Vichy. It was Mers el Kebir Brits unfair attack to the French (and Churchill’s com choice) that precipitated Darlan into Vichy. Though Darlan had always recommanded to his seemen to scuttle whenever Germany wanted to requisition the french ships, which they did in 1942 in Toulon, after that Germany had invade the 2nd half of France(following the Torch operation in Northern Africa).
De facto the french seemen saw the Brits as their second ennemies, and this is why when a Brit ship pointed into a french colonial harbour they were fired at. It is said that, the Brit ships fyed the american flags in order to avoid such attacks.
er hmm, my post was swallowed
fyed –> flyed
The Confederate “Gibraltar of the Mississippi,” Vicksburg, surrendered 147 years ago, on the Fourth of July. Seth J. Wells, Company K, 17th Illinois Regiment, wrote:
‘Hail Columbia, Happy Land! Vicksburg is ours! General rejoicing along the line. Gen. Grant and his cavalry are to go in, and capitulation commences. Thus ends one of the most brilliant campaigns the world has known since the days of Austerlitz. No one but Napoleon has equaled it. It has resulted in the complete destruction of the Rebel army at Vicksburg. They have lost without doubt about forty thousand men. The boys are beginning to think Grant is a Napoleon.
‘We passed a number of Confeds. They are as good a looking set of Reb. Troops as we have seen. Most of them are glad they have surrendered. Only a few look sober and sullen.’
Of course, the three day bloodbath at Gettysburg had ended the day before on July 3rd. It’s hard to image a worse week for the Confederate States of America.
LOTM. Thanks
We do ok. We are however allergic to tobacco. If we smoke, we’re out early from cancer or emphysema. My mother at 62, cousins around the same age uncles before 70. Its almost a sure thing. I quit 28 years ago but got enough to start atherosclerosis. Which, thanks be to God, is now more a pain in the ass than a death sentence (but, then, we’re already under that anyway).
“Stand firm, ye boys of Maine, for not once in a century are men permitted to bear such responsibilities!”
wretchard (#14), the story of your aunt’s passing was exquisite.
Salt Lick (#15), one of the advantages of our age is that it is easier, for those interested (a huge caveat, to be sure), to experience the Culture of the preceding age.
Marie Claude (#18): “The stakes were that the french nseemen should have brought their vessels to a Brit Harbour, then leave them to the British Navy, and return home.”
Your own quote shows other possibilities. More importantly, “This could never have been accepted by french seemen”? Why not? It’s not as if they didn’t have very recent French military precedent to fall back on.
buddy (#27): “why would he change from singing ‘about’ her for three lines, and then ‘to’ her in the last line?”
Notwithstanding later corrections invalidating the premise, here’s my answer: The clock has stopped.
Regarding whether ’tis best to know the time of one’s death, count me firmly in the Yes camp (for myself).
OT
For those who think that I am to nuanced. On Breitbart I have now been called a “communist rat” for saying that people should obey the law and answer the Census.
Heh, it keeps me humble in appreciating what a remarkable place our genial host has crafted here and how quality conversation is an art not exclusive to those of any political allegiance, but I think we have a leg up on that.
What Obama Doesn’t Understand About Zionism
http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/07/what_obama_doesnt_understand_a.html
for many of us we also need an article
‘What Obama Doesn’t Understand About American Exceptionalism’
see -
http://biggovernment.com/kenandken/2010/07/04/opposing-obamas-blueprint-by-celebrating-american-exceptionalism/
#15 Salt Lick
In them I’m seeing a generation that earned the right to be out on that dance floor.
When my mother was in the final stages of Alzheimer’s, one of the nurses at her hospice asked me whether she had a favorite singer– the hospice had a large collection of tapes that they would play for patients. I said that Mom’s favorite crooner was Perry Como. The nurse told me a couple days later that they were playing some tapes of “Mr.C.” for Mom, and that even though she couldn’t speak at that point, she was smiling from ear to ear (her other comfort was the large marmalade cat that lived on her floor of the hospice and visited her every day).
The family photo album has a photo of Mom’s younger sister taken at the Steel Pier in Atlantic City in 1947. My aunt is in the middle of a large crowd of bobby soxers, waving a handkerchief at Frank Sinatra (and Lordy, what a skinny little critter he was in 1947!) and screaming. But as you say, that generation had earned the right to be on the dance floor. The guy that that aunt married in 1948 (my uncle) had been in what was then the Army Air Corps, had been shot down over France on D-Day, and had been hidden for a couple of days by the local villagers until the U.S. infantry took the village. They dressed him up as a French civilian, beret and all, and told him to keep his mouth shut around any Germans who might come nosing around. Knowing him later, I have to say that keeping his mouth shut was probably the toughest part of the ordeal.
4. PA Cat
6 bogie wheel
15. Salt Lick
…and others: Great comments and links. Far above my poor power to add or detract.
I have read that Jefferson, Washington, and other prominent men of the time were often Deists, for which I gather there is no precise definition, and that they saw Christianity as a profound source of ethical and moral teaching but not the theology or mystical content. I think the Jefferson Bible reflects that.
I expect you may get several responses on this, Gordon. The “Deist” label, esp. when applied generally, does tend to make the fur fly. My personal take is that (A) you can’t generalize; these men were all highly distinct individuals, and their religious beliefs were no exception to their individuality; (B) reading selected quotes, esp. on the web, is a BAD way to approach this subject; you pretty much need to scour book-length treatments; letters & biographies, etc.; and (C) forget the definition of Deist; American society and culture are so radically different now than in the late 18th century as to make the comparison of the definition of “Christian” then and now worthy of a doctoral dissertation.
America today would, IMO, probably look like heathen Rome to the Founders and their contemporaries. An individual in that era, even if he did not subscribe to all the orthodox Christian beliefs, was still far more likely to have a higher level of Biblical literacy than all but the most studied Christian intellectuals today. Immorality was not flaunted then as it is now. Suffice it to say that even if video cameras had been around at that time, you would not have had, for instance, young ladies becoming famous and subsequently wealthy for appearing in sex tapes. Such behavior was cause for deep and utter humiliation and shame, both for the individual and their family. That’s why there was such a thing as “blackmail” back then, over behavior that wasn’t illegal. The vast majority of people were still capable of shame.
I haven’t even touched on the roots that the Constitution and laws of the time had in the Judeo-Christian tradition. That, too, is a doctoral dissertation. But as just one example, the system of checks and balances and of separation of powers in the Constitution flows directly from a belief in original sin — that NO ONE is inherently noble enough to withstand the temptations of power, and therefore power must always be kept distributed among competing individuals and institutions.
We would have gotten an entirely different Constitution if the majority of the Founders had believed in Rousseau’s noble savage, a view of man quite antithetical to that in the Bible.
OT Here is a good analysis of Obama by Fareed Zakaria and the results! The next 12 months will be very difficult for this country. Also heard on NPR business program that the number 2 home builder in this country is now Habitat for Humanity, that is scary!
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/04/AR2010070403856.html
#52 bogie wheel
We would have gotten an entirely different Constitution if the majority of the Founders had believed in Rousseau’s noble savage, a view of man quite antithetical to that in the Bible.
I think we saw how that played out in France only a year after our Constitution was ratified in 1788.
Bob
“Your own quote shows other possibilities. More importantly, “This could never have been accepted by french seemen”? Why not? It’s not as if they didn’t have very recent French military precedent to fall back on.”
This shows your ignorance of the Navy world, mind INDEPENDANCE, HONESTY to a given word, if they say that they’d rather scuttle than givin away their ships, you can trust them, for the good reson, that seas don’t care if you’re a clever politician, but wise and respectful men, if you make an error, you’re dead !
Letter to the Hebrew Congregation at Newport
http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?document=21
To Marie Claude and others discussing the British Shelling of the French Fleet at Oran (Mers-el-Khebir):
If the French had scuttled their ships, I don’t believe the Brits would have shelled them.
Once the French government had capitulated to Hitler, the British had to assume that any assets that did not actively mutiny, defy, or otherwise escape the Vichy collaborators, must be assumed to have accepted the NAZIs as their masters.
In a more familiar context, many Americans have never been able to get their brains around the legal requirement that our laws impose on a police officer making arrest:
That is, regardless of the infraction prompting the arrest, once the officer has advised the suspect that they’re being arrested, the officer is required to use all necessary force to subdue the suspect. If the subject resists, the officer is not obliged to give’m a fair fight – “mano a mano” to see just who’s the better wrassler…
On several occasions I’ve been with otherwise intelligent people who witness five or seven police officers jump on a suspect one single officer had been trying to handcuff, and their remarks have been, “Well, gee, that’s not fair… Why does it take all those officers to take down just one guy? What a bunch of fascists…”
These are the same jerks that can’t figure out how to get their little pussy cats to swallow a worm pill.
Marie Claude (#55):
In other words, Churchill should have accepted their word of honor as officers and gentlemen.
BW/52: Thanks, good info and points. I had actually never heard the term “Deist” until a few years ago, when my wife learned it from someone in her Bible study group. I looked it up and read what I could, but not at length. By coincidence, reading a review of a biography of Washington, it said (without using the term, and this isn’t an exact quote) that Washington saw Christianity not as a path to the Hereafter but rather a guide for a good and proper life.
This corresponded so much to my own orientation–but never having heard it said anywhere but inside my own head–that I recalled the comment in the Bible group and again sought more information and also looked up the Jefferson Bible. It was a sort of comfort to me to find a slot to put myself in, something more than ‘atheist’, ‘agnostic’, etc, and that it had some respectability.
But you’re second paragraph is absolutely right: to compare Deism, Christianity, etc as they may have been understood in the late 1700s to now is ‘way too much. Hell, to even compare to the late ’40s-50s when I was growing up Methodist is too much; people still had shame then. I have run out of adjectives to describe my feelings over how we have changed since my youth.
I’m not qualified to comment on your last two paragraphs except to say that, if Original Sin applies to babies, I don’t agree. But agree or not, you’re right on target with your comment on inherent nobility and the temptations of power–maybe a few percent of us, at most, cab resist and thus the need to distribute power to the lowest practical level. The seductive effect is almost always too great.
Again, Jefferson: “[public] Offices are as acceptable here as elsewhere and whenever a man has cast his eye on them, a rottenness begins in his conduct.”
Mad Fidler, but you take policemen as counter exemple, and one knows that policemen can be as twisted as the people they are ment to fight.
English Navy men were the comrads with whom that French Navy men had justmade the blocus of Germany in Norway’s waters,they knew each others, so if they’d wanted to surrender to Vichy, they just had to stay in northern french harbours, not in the colonies’.
It was just unblievable that they had to give away their ships to England without their participation as alliee Navy, or scuttle, but the 6 hours delay wasn’t respected by Churchill
PA Cat @ 54:
The Catholic high school I attended had as part of its curriculum a 9th-grade civics course, year-long, that was considered pretty rigorous, due in no small part to the disciplinarian reptutation of the female teacher. I consider myself to have learned a lot from that class and often wonder how it stacks up to what is taught in civics and government courses in high schools today.
Anyhoo, we spent a good deal of time studying the American Revolution. I remember distinctly that our teacher framed the American Revolution as a contrast to the French, and had us look at each one’s roots in, respectively, Locke and Rousseau. Her take, which she transmitted to us, was that the American Revolution had replaced the government but left the society untouched, whereas the French Revolution set out to both replace the government and remake the society. Her point being that the “organic” nature of the American Revolution (in which there was continuity of the society itself, and the new government was a natural outgrowth or expression of the society, “of the people, by the people, for the people” coming out of Locke’s idea of social contract) was one of the keys to its success. By contrast, the French Revolution’s inorganic, imposed disruption of French society, not just the overturning of government, was one of the key reasons it turned bloody. A cautionary tale, if you will. The revolutions that eat their children are, I would bet, always going to be the ones that set out to “remake society.” When the people want a new government, okay. But when the government wants a new people, or when the intellectuals want both a new government (themselves in charge, mais oui) and a new people …. look out.
I realize that there had to be some simplification of ideas & political philosophy due to the fact that my teacher’s audience was 14 year olds, but looking back I think she did a pretty good job teaching us about America’s founding. The really funny thing is that I don’t think any conservative would have objected to her lessons on the American Revolution, even though she was considered by everyone to be a verrrrrry liberal feminist.
Bob, don’t make the donkey, Churchill was a politician that need to convice the english establisment (which was Nazi appeasers) and the American that England was prepared to carry on the fights, otherwise, no money, no american support. The fact that Petain agreed to the armistice, and that France let Germany to invade her, was the argument to destroy the french navy too, but Churchill didn’t want to acknoledge that there were French that wanted to carry on the fights too, De Gaulle was snubbed when he started his call for resistance
Well, I know some legends have a hard life
Marie Claude wrote: “er hmm, my post was swallowed.”
did this have something to do with the French seemen?
I think this has gotten quite de classe’. It’s enough to make Rousseau’s noble savages blush.
sweet Marie the nymph of the sea
versus Barnacle Bob the Sailor
BW/52–here’s a possible member of that few percent: the late Sam Rayburn of Bonham TX, 17 years as Speaker of the House. He certainly appreciated power, understood and used it, but wasn’t seduced by it.
He went home every night; when asked why he didn’t attend the glitzy cocktail parties, he said, ‘they don’t serve good chili.’
Starting with his days in the TX legislature, he refused to accept gifts, retainers, favors, or anything that might affect his judgment. He famously paid his own way to tour the Panama Canal and returned an expensive thoroughbred that only he and the giver knew about.
He retired home, worth $15,000–mostly in ranch land–and died, content he’d made his mark. No world tours, speaking fees, corporate boards–a completely hopeless man by current standards.
charles/26; oddly enough –Glenn Beck too is talking about Whitefield today (he’s spelling it Whitefield not Whitfield).
wws (#63):
Snort.
gordon –great story on Sam Rayburn. he ‘made’ LBJ, too, which for all Speaker Rayburn was able to know at the time, could’ve turned out really well.
uh wws, at least, this isn’t a legend like of “the Rough Riders”
BL/68–no telling what he thought of ol’ Lyndon, who made millions, but there’s no doubt they were quite a 1-2 punch in the House and Senate. As I recall–could be wrong–he helped maneuver Johnson into the majority leadership position in something like 4-5 years, in his first term anyhow.
MC: fyed –> flyed -> flew
The United Stats today is just about every horror the FF, even Anti Federalist believed it would become and we no longer possess great enough men to effectively communicate what we were suppose to be… much less effect a turn around. We are surfs; no longer citizens, this fact ensured by the massive debt that we can never produce ourselves out of, and demographic trends that eschew, not embrace this republic.
It is a pity.
I see, MC, Brits = perfidious devils, French = pure unadulterated angels.
Let me make it simple for you. Brits needed the Vichy navy out of the theater. Gensoul knew… was told and knew what the stakes were. 6 hours is not enough to decide whether your fellow seamen would die or not?
He felt sorry for himself and was in a suicidal mode and did not give a flying fig about his fellow seamen!
bogie wheel #61
I had a very tough history teacher in high school– he was one reason why I decided to major in history as an undergraduate. We used what were generally considered college-level texts– Morison and Commager’s 2-volume Growth of the American Republic for a year-long course in American history, for example. Other required books that year included Crane Brinton’s Anatomy of Revolution, which was where I learned about the differences between the French Revolution and ours.
Yeah, I wonder too what the kids are learning now.
64. buddy larsen
I know that tune, too.
Habu (#72): “We are surfs”
Surfin’ USA!
Buddy @ 66: Beck has been talking about Whitefield (spelled “white” but Beck pronounces it “whit”) for a while now. When Charles mentioned that his pastor had referenced Whitefield, I was tempted to ask if his pastor listens to Beck. Specifically, Beck (citing historian David Barton) talks about “the black robe brigade,” i.e. church pastors of the time whose preaching was critical to laying the spiritual & philosophical foundation for the Revolution. “Black Robe Brigade” was a derogatory term from the British, whose term of choice is an indication that they considered the preachers’ role in the conflict that powerful.
MC @ 62: “Don’t make the donkey”?? I had to laugh at that one!! Did you mean, by any chance, “don’t be an @ss”? Not making fun of your English, BTW. You speak a lot more of it than I do French, so, my regards. But sometimes your phrasing does come out quite humorously.
Gordon @ 65: I really don’t know that much about Rayburn, though I was standing outside the building named after him in D.C. in March with a bunch of other Tea Partiers. I would be interested to know how much federal money he steered home, and whether he was ideologically a small-gov or big-gov type.
Lining one’s own pockets while one is in public office, as a direct or indirect result of access to the public treasury, is certainly an egregious misuse of power. But it is not the only form of misuse. I think it’s possible for a man to be personally honorable but still be operating contrary to the Constitution’s articulation of limited government.
I would probably put Harry Truman in that category. He & Bess left Washington in about as modest a financial status as they had arrived (at any rate, that is my understanding), but Truman was still a New Dealer who advocated, among other things, national health insurance, and he pushed the Housing Act of 1949, which greatly expanded the federal government’s role in housing & mortgage insurance.
Remember that chief among the entities that the Founders did not trust with unchecked power was government itself. A personally honorable leader who nevertheless expands the power and reach of government in the lives of citizens does us, the people, no favors in the long term, for he has left the door open for terrible abuse by men less honorable than himself.
buddy (#64):
We had references to:
Yankee Doodle
You’re A Grand Old Flag
El Reloj
Glen Miller
Benny Goodman
Lawrence Welk
Frank Sinatra
Thank you for your contributions to this list.
Habu! You’re back –and sound well-rested!
ok, look, all we gotta do is get the marxists out of the government –then take a small haircut on the debt –say take 25% off the coupons (so solly!), then get the mafia out of medicare –ok, kill medicare –and privatize soc sec –and we’re HOME FREE! oh yes, find some way to quit being invaded, and make sure the strategic forces and armed services can deter all them rooskies and chinee who are measuring us for ocean front dachas and mountainview estates and tasty croplands.
***
Bob, sooo –you and tharkun are also habitues of high culture –!
2=4
but this wasn’t a scenario enough good for Hollywood !
you should know that as a former crewman of the Czech Navy
buddy @ 79:
Don’t forget the Mars colony.
That whole list? Piece of cake. /sarc
LOL –the Czech Navy has to put its ships on mules to get ‘em over the Carpathians
Habu…
Hace mucho que no nos vemos. Agradable ver a usted amigo.
Dang, that doesn’t read like I said it. Sorry, I speak some, but don’t write at all.
You get the idea .
Papa Ray
#77 bogie wheel
I would probably put Harry Truman in that category. He & Bess left Washington in about as modest a financial status as they had arrived (at any rate, that is my understanding)
Yep, Harry had a monthly Army pension of $112.56 for his service in WWI. It wasn’t until 1958 that a pension act was passed for former presidents; Truman was given a pension (then called an “allowance”) of $25,000 per year.
IIRC, Andrew Jackson left Washington in 1837 with only $25 after eight years in the presidency.
76. Bob & Habu (#72)
He’s obviously read that obscure tome “The Road To Surfdom” by Fritzie Hayek, FA Hayek’s nephew, who was sort of the black sheep of the family who moved to California and became a beach bum.
Buddy, sometime they might land on Mount Ararat
BW/77: I share your general feeling about big-guv/little-guv but applying that classification to Rayburn may not be helpful. Admitting that I knew more about him years ago than now, I recall he was considered a conservative Democrat in a time when, in TX, ‘Democrat’ automatically meant conservative.
I know he considered himself a common, regular man and a champion of the common man. Recall that not accepting retainers via one’s law firm, when serving in the TX legislature, was unheard of back then, just downright strange. But he did this because he wanted to make his best judgment about what was best for the citizens, without bias or compromise. And I believe he was always that way.
So: clearly a man of integrity and conscience, doing what he thought was best. But I’m sure he was largely a New Deal Democrat, if that’s ‘big-guv’. But remember, the country and government were different then and I suspect he’d have argued at least some of those new programs were clearly needed.
Could he have seen how those things would’ve turned out decades later? Would he agree with things like affirmative action and a huge regulatory colossus? My spin is that he might say that the common man nowadays is getting it put to him from seven different directions.
But that’s just my opinion; I could be wrong.
Make fun as you please, but the funny thing is Czechs had a Navy. It was stationed at Gdansk (Danzig), Poland. It was not large, but it WAS. After 1990′s reorganization, it was disbanded, too much buck for too little bang and money were needed to buy some cooler toys like JAS 39 Grippens.
Czechs have a small commercial fleet, stationed either in Gdansk or Sczieczyn (Stettin). Don’t remember which.
As for Czech flying toys, I would love to have one of these. And speaking of Navy, US Navy uses a dozen craft of previous version (L-29) as trainers.
Bogie Wheel @ #6:
I don’t believe the Founders thought by any means they were setting perfection as the mission. I believe they were striving to create exactly what you summed up in your last sentence- “The thing is to remain dedicated to the proposition.”
They understood that perfection is unattainable, and in the Preamble to the Constitution said as much: “We the People, in order to form a more perfect Union…”
How can ‘perfect’ be ‘more perfect’?
For them the STRIVING for perfection is what life should be about in America.
tharkun (#85):
I’m not even a beach bum. I only stand and wait.
IIRC Mr. Sam’s greatest gift to the nation was slotting HS Truman as VP over the desires of FDR.
Can you imagine Wallace as Resident?
nifty plane, twoby –it’s got F-104 wings –low drag but low lift –
the B-26 Marauder had those wings –it was built in Baltimore, and the WW2 flyboys called it the Baltimore Whore –(because ‘no visible means of support’) –
***
Hannity show in an hour is heavily promoting a film about how 40 years of liberal politics has busted the nation –might be worth watching –just in case there’s a good mood lurking anywhere that needs to be murdered –
***
MC –re mt Ararat –ok, an arkasm to go with the seemen (groan)
no wait –not groan –something else –quick, i’m dying here
“For them the STRIVING for perfection is what life should be about in America.
Yea Uncle, but who gets to decide what perfection is?
Papa Ray
#92 buddy larsen
mt Ararat –ok, an arkasm to go with the seemen (groan)
Try relocating the S.S. Noah to Arkansaw (takes care of the ‘see’-men too).
Propaganda from yesteryear. Too bad we can’t seem to create propaganda to fight the fascists, commies, Islamics and progressives now.
Nope, can’t do it, It is just not Politically Correct your know.
“Frank Sinatra THE HOUSE I LIVE IN (1945)”
Buy more Ammo.
Papa Ray
P.S. OH, I forgot to include the Illegals.
And here is a take on Czech navy by a Czech. http://www.dive-log.com/golemrebreathers/CZNavy.htm
I would love to see a similar take on a French Navy by a French, but I think I’ll listen to crickets for a while before it is up.
LOL –thje Arkansaw navy and the Czech navy –”We shall fight them in the streets, we shall fight them in the hills, we shan’t fight them on the beach!”
Here is Patti singing Frank’s song. Frank is in the audience.
Patti Labelle – “The House I Live In”
Ah..yesteryear, too bad most will never, ever know of it.
But at least I remember and I will try and pass it on.
Papa Ray
Charles @ 26:
Your Pastor Lon did a fine Job. What he said needs saying much more widely and often.
Of his Four Points for restoring the American moral center, I found one thing troublesome about the fourth point.
At around 35:00 into the recording he said it was “As a church, we cannot be formally involved in this…. Number 1, it’s illegal….”
No, it is not illegal if he eschews the muzzle imposed by his tax status. It is costly. He knows it too.
If tomorrow he were to decide that he needed to take a stand for or against some individual politician or some public law up for a vote, his lawyers could arrange it so it wasn’t illegal.
He could establish his intentions to swear off his 501 (c) 3. All contributions then become taxable. (No, I don’t know how the ACLU, the People for the American Way, etc. get away with it). For instance, fear of losing tax deductible status seems to be something from which the Rev Wright has no fear. Who can explain that legally? Is it like the New Black Panther case?
Maybe Pastor Lon could make a fight about that too once he tossed the muzzle placed upon him by our rulers.
I understand his reluctance, so I suspect it will remain a flaw.
Is this why you didn’t call my attention to your post directly? Don’t be afraid. My criticism is aimed at those who enslave, not with those who struggle in the chains. Especially when the chains are so unfairly and capriciously tightened.
I could not be happier with everything else he said.
The financial predicament he faces is real. Matthew 19:23-24 is suggestive, but Mark 12:17/Matthew 22:21 offer a remedy.
Here is a solution: He could spin-off congregations who do not find themselves so hampered so he could still do what he is doing now.
Are you a member of a spin-off Charles?
Papa Ray -
Uncle Jeffe was referencing my post @ 6. The particulars of the “perfection” being strived for (if one agrees they were doing that) are the ideals laid out in the Declaration, and given a roadmap in the Constitution.
Uncle Jeffe -
Well, these comments at Belmont Club are just riffs, you know. I make no claim to dissertation-level brainsweat before I hit the “submit comment” button; just some off-the-cuff keyboard tapping & a quick glance to make sure I haven’t inadvertently called anyone’s mother a dirty name in igpay atinlay.
The “more perfect Union” phrase was, I would think, a reference to the Articles of Confederation, and that the word “perfect” was something of a literary conceit. It sounds better than “better” or “harmonious” or “effective.”
I agree they knew perfection wasn’t attainable. Their view of human nature (esp. the Calvinists among them) would not have permitted them to believe that perfection was attainable, certainly not on this Earth. But the manner in which they laid out the ideals of what government’s responsibilities are, and acknowledging the aspect of the sacred (that government’s role is to secure the rights given to men by God), there’s a “holy covenant” whiff to it all, a sense that what they are positing to be the liberties and dignities of the people are so frakking important that THEY – SHALL – NOT – BE – VIOLATED … for to violate them is to incur the wrath of the transcendent, “the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God.” So horrible is the violation of just one God-given right of just one individual that nothing less than a perfect upholding of all rights of all men should be the responsibility that government is charged with. Let those in leadership feel the weight, dammit. At the same time we know that leaders are fallible mortals and that government will fail to perfectly execute its responsibilities. Welcome to the human condition: we know what ought to be done, just as we know we ain’t gonna be able to do all that ought.
Precise wording is elusive in all this. To put it as Browning, spun by Noonan, put it, “that their reach should exceed their grasp,” comes closest, I think. The grasp, the standard of perfection, the ideals of “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” — these ideals have to be articulated, laid out that the safeguarding of these is what is expected of those entrusted with political power.
I don’t know that there’s such a big difference between what you wrote & what I wrote. A “mission” is an assignment. When the goal is that lofty and, in realistic terms, unattainable, it is more or less understood that, the goal being too far out there, discharging one’s finite duties towards fulfilling that assignment (“striving for perfection,” in your parlance) becomes the most that each generation can be expected to do, hopefully, advancing on the work of each previous generation.
The only people who believe that perfection *is* attainable are the idiots, who all too often become the useful idiots in service of the worst of the America bashers, the sinister would-be masters who fixate on America’s faults not to improve her but to destroy her.
“The only people who believe that perfection *is* attainable are the idiots, who all too often become the useful idiots in service of the worst of the America bashers, the sinister would-be masters who fixate on America’s faults not to improve her but to destroy her.”
Like I said…Who’s perfection?
Papa Ray
Nit found, pounced upon, and herewith picked:
Bogie said:
The only people who believe that perfection *is* attainable are the idiots, who all too often become the useful idiots in service of the worst of the America bashers, the sinister would-be masters who fixate on America’s faults not to improve her but to destroy her.
Papa said:
Like I said…Who’s perfection?
I really think you mean “whose” which is the possessive form. Because; I think you and I agree that there is only One who is Perfection.
As to your point, their (the “sinister would-be masters”) view is that perfection is available here under their all-knowing supervision. And the rest of us know ‘t’aint so.
bogie wheel @100: “Let those in leadership feel the weight.”
Yeeeesss. [/Frank Nelson]
Yesterday, when the story “Dying Lockerbie bomber ‘could survive for 10 years or more’” broke, the the BC thread “And Justice For All” had closed.
The snark I felt needed to be added then has reemerged.
Let those in leadership feel the weight.
Like I said…Who’s perfection?
Okay, Papa Ray, now you’re just being an ornery Texas cuss, aren’t you?
This seems to cycle back to my comment above in 61. The Founders posited a “perfect condition” of man ONLY insofar as he possesses certain rights given to him by God. Not that man is either perfect or perfectible. Merely that the rights God has given us are perfect, i.e. good, absolute, unalienable.
The progressives OTOH have always been about ostensibly perfecting man via social engineering. “In order to form a more perfect Man” — as opposed to the more modest project of “In order to form a more perfect Union” — would be their constitutional preamble. When they can get the sheeple to swallow the canard that perfecting man/society is the (sacred!) duty of government, then it necessarily follows that the government has the moral authority to do anything and everything, to hold any and every degree of power, necessary to hustle that pigskin over the goal line.
NO-NO-NO-NO-NO.
Nothing could be further removed from the Founders’ views of human nature and the role of government. Man has a sin nature and is therefore not perfectible in this life. Therefore society, as a collection of sinful individuals, is not perfectible. Therefore for government to take on the project of perfecting society is, at best, a fool’s errand, though quite likely much worse than that — think hell on earth. (Ironic, given that government marches under the banner of a perfection project.)
So what then are the proper boundaries of government?
The Founders expressed it in broad strokes in the Declaration: securing the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness (including but not limited to the pursuit of property). Government’s job is to restrain Citizen A from violating the life, liberty and/or property of Citizen B, while itself not stripping Citizen A of his life, liberty or property without due process.
Government’s job is *not* to restrain Citizen A from being a self-destructive idiot (ingesting transfats, not wearing a helmet while riding the chopper, buying a mortgage he/she can’t afford), and it is not to restrain Citizen A from hurting the feelings of or offending Citizen B (speech codes, photographer’s services at gay commitment ceremonies, etc.).
You can, of course, make a man pretty compliant & darn near perfect if you have total control over him, i.e. if you enslave him. Take away the little fool’s right to choose anything for himself, anything at all, and he will surely never offend anyone or anything ever again. Though he might think dark resentful thoughts towards *you.* But then, you have ways of dealing with Thoughtcrimes, don’t you?
Let those in leadership feel the weight –instead of we who feel the wait.
2=4
Glad I gave you the opportunity of a brainstorming, but for an advertizing for a Buddy beer !
while we work seriously:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x73l84_rafale-marine_creation
100. bogie wheel
they knew perfection wasn’t attainable. Their view of human nature (esp. the Calvinists among them) would not have permitted them to believe that perfection was attainable, certainly not on this Earth.
CALVINISM IN AMERICA
It is estimated that of the 3,000,000 Americans at the time of the American Revolution, 900,000 were of Scotch or Scotch-Irish origin[who were all presbyertian calvinists], 600,000 were [calvinist]Puritan English, and 400,000 were [calvinist]German or Dutch Reformed. In addition to this the Episcopalians had a Calvinistic confession in their Thirty-nine Articles; and many French [calvinist]Huguenots also had come to this western world. Thus we see that about two-thirds of the colonial population had been trained in the school of Calvin.
uh, what is a steveaz ?
I walked through a park in a little Iowa town on the Mississippi River this morning. They celebrated the 4th the night before with fireworks. Everyone left their trash on the grass. It was a pigsty. God bless America. We need all the help we can get.
@Pascal #99
Your mention of 501(c)3 is, I believe, very astute to discussion of our independence from Crown tyranny. One of the major reasons for the foundations of the American colonies was to escape the reach of the Church of England, which substituted the King for Christ as its head–an act that made Protestants as uncomfortable as did the Pope’s position, as they began reading scripture.
The founders explicitly wanted to avoid this situation, which is why there are prohibitions against making laws respecting (ie. favoring) a religion. However, by establishing an income tax the implicit power was given to the government to determine who would or would not be charged under that tax. The government, under 501(c)3, reserved the right to recognize a church incorporated under the laws of its state (and therefore subject to state regulation as well) based on the adherence of that church to certain stipulations–most critically regarding the content of the sermons from that church, including points about not preaching against government policies and the like
This, then, creates a “voluntary” state church, held by financial threat (at minimum) to toe the state line on any issue that the state has established policy over. Compare this to the jizya tax on unrepentant infidels–you can theoretically be an infidel in a muslim country if you’re willing to put up with the financial cost.
So then, what is to be done to escape the modern state church? The best model for advice I’ve seen is from the movement back to “house churches”, which follow what has happened in China. That is: break up the congregation, appoint deacons (in the scriptural, new testament sense of the word), and disperse them to people’s houses for meetings. A pastor can get alot of outreach by through the internet, as well as rotating around and meeting with house-church leaders. Money (and its pressures) no longer becomes an issue, since no building is maintained, and so it becomes available to either support the pastor’s ministry or give to the poor.
Of course, what the state decides to do with tiny “unregistered” churches remains to be seen.
–JC
77. bogie wheel
Specifically, Beck (citing historian David Barton) talks about “the black robe brigade,” i.e. church pastors of the time whose preaching was critical to laying the spiritual & philosophical foundation for the Revolution. “Black Robe Brigade” was a derogatory term from the British, whose term of choice is an indication that they considered the preachers’ role in the conflict that powerful
……
“So intense, universal, and aggressive were the Presbyterians in their zeal for liberty that the war was spoken of in England as “The Presbyterian Rebellion.” An ardent colonial supporter of King George III wrote home: “I fix all the blame for these extraordinary proceedings upon the Presbyterians. They have been the chief and principal instruments in all these flaming measures. They always do and ever will act against government from that restless and turbulent anti-monarchial spirit which has always distinguished them everywhere.”2 When the news of “these extraordinary proceedings” reached England, Prime Minister Horace Walpole said in Parliament, “Cousin America has run off with a Presbyterian parson” (John Witherspoon, president of Princeton, signer of Declaration of Independence).
J. R. Sizoo tells us: “When Cornwallis was driven back to ultimate retreat and surrender at Yorktown, all of the colonels of the Colonial Army but one were Presbyterian elders. More than one-half of all the soldiers and officers of the American Army during the Revolution were Presbyterians.”3 ”
CALVINISM IN AMERICA
…………
It should be said that the presbyterian church today in both its liberal(losing members) and conservative branches (gaining members)is a very pale shadow of its former self.
However, the scotch irish remain as significant contributors to the US military.
Charles @ 111: thanks for this post, I’ve wondered for some time (without actually sitting down to research it) just what managed to move the colonists from disgruntlement to action. Every schoolchild is taught that it happened, but the tax on tea really seemed an odd last straw, or straw at all, to a bloody war. Have to cogitate further on this one, thanks again.
Charles and bogie wheel
FYI: Contemporary Brits at the time of the Revolution noted the importance of dissenting Protestantism.
“Cousin American has run off with a Presbyterian Parson and that is the end of it.” Horace Walpole.
King George blamed the whole thing on Calvinist clergymen–the “black regiment.”
Check out Witte’s book on the contribution of Calvinism to the concept of human rights and the American Revolution. It issues a corrective to those who seek a more secular root of both the American and European revolutions.
#108 Marie Claude
uh, what is a steveaz ?
Probably an abbreviation for Steve from Arizona, AZ being the two-letter Postal Service abbreviation for the state.
From upstream, how is “b@llsy” ballsy
?
Sure, let’s “feel the weight” of principle, reckoning, and history. Or, in my case, that of a corpulent fiance who doesn’t make an issue of his partner’s pounds and past when he pounds past the point.
Meanwhile, this has been a lovely tribute thread to the patriots who’ve memorialized The Fourth as their leavetaking. (Love you, Uncle John, who died this Independence Day at age 103. You were a stalwart American as best as you knew how and better than I might ever be.)
Also, we know Marie Claude and Buddy are working together seriously: say la vee, la more…
MC I can certainly buy a sixpack of Budvar (Buddy beer, now that’s an interesting idea, whaddaya say, Buddy?), or maybe I can somehow scramble together $200,000 for a Czech Albatros L-39, but I can’t buy a French aircraft carrier.
Sorry to disappoint, but a pat for the effort!
104. bogie wheel
Man has a sin nature and is therefore not perfectible in this life. Therefore society, as a collection of sinful individuals, is not perfectible. Therefore for government to take on the project of perfecting society is, at best, a fool’s errand, though quite likely much worse than that — think hell on earth. (Ironic, given that government marches under the banner of a perfection project.)
So what then are the proper boundaries of government?
The Founders expressed it in broad strokes in the Declaration:
…………..
The inner mechanics of government that set up the system of checks and balances to restrain government– was drawn up by Madison in the federalist papers. He was a calvinist and like many in the continental congress — a student of witherspoon.
99. Pascal
Are you a member of a spin-off Charles?
……….
nope.
when the pastor preaches to me — he’s preaching to the choir.
that 5013c biz has a strange history. I’m not sure if it was mentioned above in the thread on Lyndon Johnson. But he was the guy who introduced the enabling 5013c legislation into congress back in the 1950′s.
might be a good idea to repeal that law.
One of the greatest divides is over a simple question. Is man good or bad? Is it possible to perfect? The side that thinks of man as good, or perfectible, figures if we just change the culture, all will be right.
The side that knows of our design flaw, that somehow God chose to allow “evil” has a very different take on government. King log is the preferred monarch.
As an aside, is allowing evil a design flaw? As a 4.2 point Calvinist, fully mindful of my/our flaws, I see it is only with that “flaw”, freedom is possible. We are free to go, so we are free to come. Subject to one of the weirdest paradoxes: That God is fully in charge, I have not the slightest ability to do anything on my own, yet somehow in this, i am free to choose.
You can see how this view is helpful in understanding American freedom. We know individuals will make bad mistakes, yet like God giving us true freedom, America offers true freedom. The danger we face is government offering “safety” (“It’s for the children”), in trade for our freedom. What will we choose?
twobyfour, speaking of the Czech Republic and aircraft carriers, I am reminded of a quote by Alexander Haig about Israel often trotted out by pro-Israel advocates. He referred to Israel as “the largest, most battle-tested and cost-effective US aircraft carrier, which does not require a single US personnel, cannot be sunk and is located at a most critical area for US national security interests.”
(By the way, given the not altogether rare Obama-Chamberlain comparisons, you won’t get much points for guessing which role Israel feels it’s being pressured into playing.)
Charles (#118): “5013c … might be a good idea to repeal that law.”
I was composing a comment on that when I realized I didn’t understand what you meant. Are you advocating (wondering aloud) that tax-exempt status should be limited/eliminated in the first place, or that it should be much more difficult to remove said status?
Regarding the theological discussion, here’s my take: Man has fallen from Grace by his Original Sin of partaking from the forbidden fruit without Gaea’s permission. Fortunately, Soros so loved the world, that he gave us Obama, that the world through him might be saved. … I could go on, but you know what? As a great man once said, “I don’t find this stuff amusing anymore.” Maybe I should get some sleep.
If you search [ calvinism comeback ] –there’s just loads of new fresh high-energy articles. Kind of a shock actually, i’d've thought the identifier was long gone in amber. i was raised presbyterian but quit ‘em on the ‘world council of churches’ attacks on israel. the divestiture offensive. for me, that was ‘whoops, this ain’t no church’. but –as with most problems, it’s a people problem. somebody had told these churchmen what their PC position was to be –the lack of ‘diversity’ on obviously piling on the victim of the bad behavior they exist to preach against, was too strong a ‘tell’ to ignore. So, the 501-c3 is a place to start wondering what killed the world council’s churchiness.
Glenn Beck last Friday had a panel of what i guess would be called ‘fundamentalist’ ministers, preachers, reverends, 6 or 8 fellers who poured out some very clear thinking –and without much if any at all reference to the theology. they were on to –American behavior, and how government is trying to ruin it. Anyhoo, one of them was especially effective, a black guy name of Stephen Broden, and this thread’s 501-c3 peroration sent me packing for a transcript of Broden on that topic:
***start quote
BECK: Stephen, real quick. I’ve got to take a break, but go ahead and let’s chew on your comment in here.
BRODEN: I just want to beg to differ with my colleagues there. I think the failure of pastors to take the lead in this issue — on these issues is the reason why we are seeing the kind of problems or malaise that we’re seeing in our culture today.
In addition to that, I want to introduce my friend to the idea of hate crime legislation, introduce them to the idea of a 501-C3 that is used to knock Christians around and keep them silent, from speaking out in America today.
I want to introduce them to the idea of ENDA, which is Employment Non-Discrimination, which is bullying people and pushing Christians into hiring people that they should not hire.
We are experiencing, in America, a soft tyranny and we need to resist it. We need to recognize what it is, call it what it is. The Bible says that the Christians — that the gatekeepers, that the shepherds have failed. And our shepherds in America have strengthened the hands of the evildoers because they have been silent for too long.
BECK: I have to take a break. Be back in just a second.
***end quote, see link @
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,595806,00.html
***
i noticed when searching for a transcript site, that Beck gets attacked from both directions –the link i wanted was sandwiched between the Stormfront (paste of the google blurb):
I expect this Beck show to be full of heroic and fabricated …. And it’s not even Black History Month. Glenn Beck is the exact type … overweight, modern ZOGbot Baptist preachers who give off more …
…and the soros MediaMatters:
Jul 2, 2010 … Fox News, The Black Panthers, And The Same Old Pattern … Right-Wing Media Defend BP Against “Shakedowns,” “Show Trials,” And Environmentalists … July 02, 2010 1:11 am ET; Beck’s “preachers and pastors” panel: straight from the fringe … John Stossel · Fox Business · Glenn Beck · Juan Williams …
***
i’d say if he’s got both ends of the lying curve in pissed off agreement, he’s probably shipping out some Truth.
***
mewl team, that b@llsy comment is hilarious –dunno who said it but all in good fun, that IS a blusher. and me too, i blush on the flirting with MC comment –but don’t be silly, we have never once gotten anything straight between us –
:-/
72. Habu
First, an apology for the tardiness of this reply. I got carried away with my penchant for cracking wise… okay… for being a smartass, and forgot to post this earlier.
I share your concerns for this country and mostly agree with your assessment of the dire straits in which we find ourselves. The situation is grim, and there is no way we are going to avoid passing through the crucible of suffering and loss.
We have as a people squandered our heritage, abandoned the principles upon which our special and unique place in the history of human civilization was based, and have thereby forfeited, at least for now, the protection of that Providence whose angel rode with us against all odds “in the whirlwind” of our founding.
It is now time for judgment and atonement. As Thomas Jefferson wrote* “I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever.”*
*(As a fit subject for discussion at another time, this quote blows the tiresome “Jefferson was merely a Deist” argument out of the water. The Deist’s God, who created all but left it to run itself, would never rouse himself to mete out justice.)
However, I also believe, despite the facile cynicism my posting style might sometimes imply, that same God is forgiving, helps those who help themselves, and will still be there for us when it’s time to rebuild. I believe as well that there are still many good people here who do remember the right things, and there remain strong and capable individuals of good character among us who will emerge as leaders to articulate the message and lead the fight.
We are seeing the nascence of that even now. Unquestionably, the fight is now against all odds, as it was before, and the hour is indeed late, but I believe there is cause for hope, the real, genuine kind of hope which can only come from faith in that same Creator who inspired and succored our forefathers in their darkest hours. Victory in this life is not guaranteed, nor was it then, but if we abandon hope and faith, then defeat is certain. This fight is not optional, but if we must lose, at least for now and in the sense of our own limited human understanding, then I still choose Churchill’s alternative to fight and die on our feet rather than live as slaves.
It is good to have you back. I enjoy and appreciate your comments and perspectives (and your style!). And again, I apologize that I first greeted your return with my own indulgence of the delights of a snarkfest. I humbly plead the Popeye defense: “I yam what I yam”. There have been some fascinating discussions in your absence. If you haven’t done so, I suggest reading the thread “The Age of the Demon”. There were some interesting puzzle pieces which illuminated certain aspects of some of your past encounters here which emerged. You might be amused… /g
121. buddy larsen
i blush on the flirting with MC comment –but don’t be silly, we have never once gotten anything straight between us – :-/
A callow country bumpkin rarely stands a chance against a mistress of artful dissonance from the Parisian salons. Sometimes you can keep ‘em… down… on the farm, even after they’ve seen Paree…
120. Bob
abolish it. see
121. buddy larsen
120. Bob
Regarding the theological discussion, here’s my take: Man has fallen from Grace by his Original Sin of partaking from the forbidden fruit without Gaea’s permission. Fortunately, Soros so loved the world, that he gave us Obama, that the world through him might be saved. … I could go on, but you know what? As a great man once said, “I don’t find this stuff amusing anymore.”
……..
Jezebel politics is much further along than most fully appreciate.
Stating the Obvious: Liberal Words Have Meaning
BL/121–you didn’t mention that Broden is running for Congress in the Dallas area, 30th district TX.
tharkun/123; yup, yew are right, we’uns tried to keep her down on the farm, even orferd to kill the old red rooster. She sayd she had rather pullet. I sayd “Befo Supper?” –and she give a disgorstid look and hopped back in the blog and wrote off down the road
***
Gordon –i should’ve –mental slip –but you fixed it! He’s excellent –hope he wins –goshalmighty if we ever needed some strong voices to bloc-break it is now.
79. buddy larsen
Habu! You’re back –and sound well-rested!
ok, look, all we gotta do is get the marxists out of the government –then take a small haircut on the debt –say take 25% off the coupons (so solly!), then get the mafia out of medicare –ok, kill medicare –and privatize soc sec –and we’re HOME FREE! oh yes, find some way to quit being invaded, and make sure the strategic forces and armed services can deter all them rooskies and chinee who are measuring us for ocean front dachas and mountainview estates and tasty croplands.
…………
one more. knock out dependence on foreign oil/energy
uh, what’s that ? Isis ballcing with the wolves ?
Me thinks some are still too impressed by Calvin that that they think they are tempted by clichés of Paree in their saloon
Buddy, the equivalent of Pareeland:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRbEWUCA-os&feature=related
MC, YEehaw –longue dure de vie de la Franco connexion Texas – l’amour de la corde lariat autour de la fleur de lis!
***
LotM, one more. knock out dependence on foreign oil/energy –two thirds of our trade deficit, month in, month out. The Green transfer to …The House of Saud???? (actually, the stuff for us is mainly western hemisphere and Nigeria, but –it’s fungible, so the point is valid)
Way to go, Greenies! You buncha fricken geniuses you!
but on a deeper note –WHY do we LET them DO it?
Is Lawfare an ultimate weapon?
From the lot of Americans that I happened to cross on the Net, I had the feeling that the Texans have the fairest approach on whatever is, or comes from France. At least Texans tried to understand our point of view without carrying clichés.
Now is it because of being a half “latin” state not squatted by the original Pilgrins ?
…back on the relgion theme from around the century mark above:
http://confederateyankee.mu.nu/archives/303336.php
***open snips
“British Methodists Sign Up to Help Islamists Build Ovens”
…ellipse
“Here was a group of almost stereotypically ordinary, middle-class, English Christians calmly reciting every hackneyed anti-Israeli calumny in the book.”
***close snip, read more @ link
MC, half Latino, and also French Louisiana right next door –Houston and New Orleans are really tightly connected.
SW Louisiana surnames
And there’s lots of France French in and around Austin –the soils and weathers are like the ‘midi’ they say. texas is the melting pot inside the melting pot of USA –and it still works here –i think for the same reason America worked so well (until this communist caca got loose in the academy and created the urban wasteland experiment so beloved in ivory towers) –the frontier, the open land, the room to breathe. but i brag too much, i couldn’t stand myself if i wasn’t me.
BL: there’s lots of France French in and around Austin
Did I not know better about UT (home of Prof Eric Pianka, the Peter Singer of terrorism) and were I not a bit Francophile, I’d be inclined to conclude an influence on the U’s condition from your factoid.
How come Texans haven’t stripped Austin of its heroic name by nicknaming your capital something like “New Leningrad?” Maybe you could look at Austin as the photo-negative Berlin of Texas in need of a wall to prevent contamination. — Oh, too late!
MC: I surely hope you do not see any French bashing in my employing the Parisian Shrug as I did above. It was rather a metaphorical condemnation of Scot and world dis-ownership of their odious bit of malevolent statecraft. The Parisian’s might even approve were I more accomplished in French and pun-meistering.
but that’s only the university and the state gov’t that’s Democrat, Pascal –the service stations and the Whataburgers are safe so far. Travis county is the lone blue in a sea of red counties –the valley is blue –but without resort to search i’d say that of the 254 counties, there’s 6 or 8 blue along the river and then the State Embarrassment, Travis County. The local hot shot green lawfarists are Californy-indocs (staff is mostly from Berserkely).
JC in KZ @110:
It took the Income Tax to erode their protections under the first Amendment. It’s a voluntary restriction that can be voluntarily revoked at cost. You laid out the situation well enough.
It would be tyranny of the first order for the mini-churches to be subjected to persecutions in America. The question that remains: “Has the public been inculcated enough in hostility to religion that the state could get away with the tyranny?” Surely the public WILL be more hostile later without careful push-back from us now.
Charles at 118: What JC in KZ suggestions builds on what I was suggesting. His sermon sounded like a plea to the world to do what we are talking about. Discuss it with your Pastor. See if he’d favor these ideas. He may be ready to provide more fodder for thought.
The 21st Century direly needs a Whitfield and a whole slew of independent religiously centered blocs as an antidote to the burgeoning and oppressive greenie, neo-pagan state. Yes?
That’s good news Buddy. Get cracking on that wall then.
134. Pascal
How come Texans haven’t stripped Austin of its heroic name by nicknaming your capital something like “New Leningrad?”
I lived in Texas for a decade and qualified for my “Texan By Choice” ID card, so please excuse my butting in and adding to buddy’s comments. Texans have a great affinity for and appreciate the value of educational preserves for exotic and even dangerous fauna. There are several such preserves where you can visit and observe dangerous creatures from Africa, Asia and other parts of the world, all roaming free and uncaged. They even had a rattlesnake rodeo when I lived there.
Austin and UT are but one more such sanctuary, for a wide variety of raving liberal moonbats. Texans know they’re dangerous, and they do cause damage on a regular basis. However, so are rattlesnakes, and Texans have never been ones to shrink from danger.
In addition, they’re entertaining, and of great educational value as object lessons for teaching future generations of Texans about some of life’s greatest and most dangerous threats. Finally, it’s a lot safer for everyone having as many of them as possible concentrated in only a handful of locations where folks can keep an eye on them rather than roaming loose among the rest of the populace.
BL @121:
Beck’s cut to break on Broden’s 501(c)3 discussion and not exploring it further afterward is worrisome. Yes, it could have been a programming decision. On what basis: boring? Who says?
Notice how quickly my mention of it got the attention of so many here. Same country wide. I smell Murdock influences dammit. You know, that guy who has Islamic minority share holders in NewsCorp. That guy who is pushing amnesty along with the other
corporatestatist bigwigs. The guy who owns FNC, the antidote to the MFM? Orwell again: The Statists arrange their own opposition.Maybe the circumstances that compelled me to mention 501(c)3 is worth further consideration.
Could it be true that Pastors know they can’t easily call out this demon by name lest the demon turn on them? Does anybody know of an instance where that happened? Pastor Lon said it was “illegal” to voice dissent without further elaboration. That seems to me to be a begging to “READ BETWEEN THE LINES.” Could it be true that Pastors know they can’t even mention 501(c)3 without repercussions?
The knowledge could be revealing in and of itself. If true, inquiries to and info from a clergyman may need to be passed discretely. From a lawyer maybe more readily as they would have access to case law. Probably tax case law, but possibly another dept. What case and which church was penalized and the rest scared witless?
When Blaise Pascal wrote his revealingly sarcastic Provincial Letters, he not only hid his own identity, he hid that of his sources of in-church literary criticism.
Pascal disguised his sources by placing their words in the mouth of a naif provincial father who was perpetually awestruck at the contortionist logic emanating from the Sorbonne.
Charles: Have we entered, or are we entering a similar period of danger for the legitimate church?
One more thing. I may have said this before, but I think it bears repeating.
The difference that I find terrifying, as well we all ought, is that the intelligentsia and leadership that is driving the irrational appearing attacks and power grabbing has found a way to make itself immune to embarrassment. I think it may be a product of all of the public roasts that teaches them how to laugh off the worst of charges like a duck sheds water off its back.
We are not going to be able, as Pascal did, to drive them off by making laughing stocks of them. (E.g.: Is Nancy Pelosi fazed an iota by the ludicrous self-parodies of her every appearance? Hell no!) This time sarcasm and satire are not enough.
It seems like Pastor Lon is not naive. Run this history by him.
Pascal,
no problemo
Interesting observation about Texas, MC. Others have noted several good reasons for this; put me along with those who think the proximity to Louisiana has a lot to do with it, there is a *lot* of back and forth between the two. (full disclosure – my wife’s a louisiana girl)
But also, Texas civil law was originally based on Spanish civil law, not English common law, since that’s what was in use here in 1836. Texas law has evolved since then, of course, and now is best seen as an updated fusion of the two influences. I understand Spanish civil law to be quite close to the French, although of course not the full Napoleonic Code such as Louisiana law is still based on. (Only state to do that, means that ONLY Louisiana lawyers understand Louisiana law!) But that’s why Texas has always embraced such things as full community property rights, a thing found nowhere in the English system.
English civil law historically treated women quite abysmally, it was kind of surprising to find out that they’ve traditionally been worse than just about any other European nation in that regard.
Might be revealing to survey BC readers (not just commenters) to see how many of’em claim a Texas connection – either residence or antecedent forebear… or five.
I take some cheer in noting several other folks hereabouts who admit to making their living in animation, computer graphics, special effects, and warping young minds by instructing them how to go forth and do likewise.
My mama was raised up in Slaton, Texas in the 1920′s. Lotta dirt farmer relations, dispossessed of their farms in the “Dust Bowl Days.”
One of my great-grandmothers came from East Texas, and married a Louisiana man. I still have first cousins in Texas – my favorites. I have some other old connections to Texas as well. Always loved the place.
Marie Claude @ 131: “I had the feeling that the Texans have the fairest approach on whatever is, or comes from France.”
Got to love them Texans. Lots of more internationally-inclined Texans drive around with this bumper sticker:
http://www.texasterritories.com/detail.asp?PRODUCT_ID=SOUVBIGFRSTCKR
“Texas is bigger than France”
Kinuachdrach
often our both states are put in parallel for GDP groth, population, size…etc.
wws,
interesting, I didn’t know that.
tharkun (#122): “this quote blows the tiresome ‘Jefferson was merely a Deist’ argument out of the water.”
Without taking any position in the matter, surely the Jefferson quote can be understood rhetorically?
“I believe there is cause for hope, the real, genuine kind of hope which can only come from faith in that same Creator who inspired and succored our forefathers in their darkest hours.”
As a much-maligned man said oh so many years ago: “This work continues. This story goes on. And an angel still rides in the whirlwind and directs this storm.”
Charles (#124):
In other words, lead them away from temptation.
I’m in general agrement with the article you linked.
Perhaps the author didn’t quite realize what kind of worship was meant?
buddy (#121):
“ZOGbot”! Darn, too bad I am so famous as “Bob”, or I would switch to “ZOGbot” as a nick.
#127: “She sayd she had rather pullet”
“She said: ‘Pardon Monsieur, while I go into the kitchen and …’”
If this is gonna be that kind of party…
#130: “MC, YEehaw –longue dure de vie de la Franco connexion Texas – l’amour de la corde lariat autour de la fleur de lis!”
Or in other words: “Now you know what it feels like!”
Marie Claude (#129):
I give you Corky and the Juice Pigs.
#131: “I had the feeling that the Texans have the fairest approach on whatever is, or comes from France”
They’ve already had much practice in dealing with effete snobs within their own country.
Here is something a close friend of my Dad wrote years ago that might shed a little light on the subject of Texas:
“What it means to be a Texan”
by Bum Phillips
Dear Friends,
Last year, I wrote a small piece about what it means to me to be a Texan. My friends know it means about damned near everything. Anyway, this fella asked me to reprint what I’d wrote and I didn’t have it. So I set out to think about rewriting something. I considered writing about all the great things I love about Texas. There are way too many things to list. I can’t even begin to do it justice.
Lemme let you in on my short list.
It starts with The Window at Big Bend, which in and of itself is proof of God. It goes to Lake Sam Rayburn where my Grandad taught me more about life than fishin, and enough about fishin to last a lifetime. I can talk about Tyler, and Longview, and Odessa and Cisco, and Abilene and Poteet and every place in between.
Every little part of Texas feels special. Every person who ever flew the Lone Star thinks of Bandera or Victoria or Manor or wherever they call “home” as the best little part of the best state.
So I got to thinkin about it, and here’s what I really want to say.
Last year, I talked about all the great places and great heroes who make Texas what it is. I talked about Willie and Waylon and Michael Dell and Michael DeBakey and my Dad and LBJ and Denton Cooley. I talked about everybody that came to mind. It took me sitting here tonight reading this stack of emails and thinkin about where I’ve been and what I’ve done since the last time I wrote on this occasion to remind me what it is about Texas that is really great.
You see, this last month or so I finally went to Europe for the first time. I hadn’t ever been, and didn’t too much want to. But you know all my damned friends are always talking about “the time they went to Europe.” So, I finally went. It was a hell of a trip to be sure. All they did when they saw me was say the same thing, before they’d ever met me. “Hey cowboy, we love Texas.” I guess the hat tipped em off.
But let me tell you what, they all came up with a smile on their faces. You know why? They knew for damned sure that I was gonna be nice to em. They knew it cause they knew I was from Texas. They knew something that hadn’t even hit me. They knew Texans, even though they’d never met one.
That’s when it occurred to me. Do you know what is great about Texas? Do you know why when my friend Beverly and I were trekking across country to see 15 baseball games we got sick and had to come home after 8? Do you know whyevery time I cross the border I say, “Lord, please don’t let me die in_____”? Do you know why children in Japan can look at a picture of the great State and know exactly what it is about the same time they can tell a rhombus from a trapezoid?
I can tell you that right quick. You.
The samespirit that made 186 men cross that line in the sand in San Antonio damned near 165 years ago is still in you today. Why else would my friend send me William Barrett Travis’ plea for help in an email just a week ago, or why would Charles Stanfield ask me to reprint a Texas Independence column from a year ago? What would make my friend Elizabeth say, “I don’t know if I can marry a man who doesn’t love Texas like I do?” Why in the hell are 1,000 people coming to my house this weekend to celebrate a holiday for what usedto be a nation that is now a state?
Because the spirit that made that nation is the spirit that burned in every person who founded this great place we call Texas, and they passed it on through blood or sweat to everyone of us.
You see, that spirit that made Texas what it is is alive in all of us, even if we can’t stand next to a cannon to prove it, and it’s our responsibility to keep that fire burning. Every person who ever put a”Native Texan” or an “I wasn’t born in Texas but I got here as fast as I could” sticker on his car understands.
Anyone who ever hung a map of Texas on their wall or flew a Lone Star flag on their porch knows what I mean. My Dad’s buddy Bill has an old saying. He says that some people were forged of a hotter fire. Well, that’s what it is to be Texan. To be forged of a hotter fire. To know that part of Colorado was Texas. That part of New Mexico was Texas. That part of Oklahoma was Texas. Yep. Talk all you want. Part of what you got was what we gave you. To look at a picture of Idaho or Istanbul and say, “what the Hell is that?” when you know that anyone in Idaho or Istanbul who sees a picture of Texas knows damned good and well what it is. It isn’t the shape, it isn’t the state, it’s the state of mind.
You’re what makes Texas. The fact that you would take 15 minutes out of your day to read this, because that’s what Texas means to you, that’s what makes Texas what it is. The fact that when you see the guy in front of you litter you honk and think, “Sonofabitch. Littering on MY highway.”
When was the last time you went to a person’s house in New York and you saw a big map of New York on their wall? That was never. When did you ever drive through Oklahoma and see their flag waving on four businesses in a row? Can you even tell me what the flag in Louisiana looks like? I damned sure can’t. But I bet my ass you can’t drive 20 minutes from your house and not see a business that has a big Texas flag as part of its logo. If you haven’t done business with someone called AllTex something or Lone Star somebody or other, or Texas such and such, you hadn’t lived here for too long.
When you ask a man from New York what he is, he’ll say a stockbroker, or an accountant, or an ad exec. When you ask a woman from California what she is, she’ll tell you her last name or her major. Hell either of em might say “I’m a republican,” or they might be a democrat. When you ask a Texan what they are, before they say, “I’m a Methodist,” or “I’m a lawyer,” or “I’m a Smith,” they tell you they’re a Texan.
I got nothin against all those other places, and Lord knows they’ve probably got some fine folks, but in your gut you know it just like I do, Texas is just a little different.
So tomorrow when you drive down the road and you see a person broken down on the side of the road, stop and help. When you are in a bar in California, buy a Californian a drink and tell him it’s for Texas Independence Day. Remind the person in the cube next to you that he wouldn’t be here enjoying this if it weren’t for Sam Houston, and if he or she doesn’t know the story, tell them.
When William Barrettt Travis wrote in 1836 that he would never surrender and he would have Victory or Death, what he was really saying was that he and his men were forged of a hotter fire. They weren’t your average everyday men. Well, that is what it means to be a Texan. It meant it then, and that’s why it means it today. It means just what all those people North of the Red River accuse us of thinking it means. It means there’s no mountain that we can’t climb. It means that we can swim the Gulf in the winter. It means that Earl Campbell ran harder and Houston is bigger and Dallas is richer and Alpine is hotter and Stevie Ray was smoother and God vacations in Texas. It means that come Hell or high water, when the chips are down and the Good Lord is watching, we’re Texans by damned, and just like in 1836, that counts for something.
So for today at least, when your chance comes around, go out and prove it. It’s true because we believe it’s true. If you are sitting wondering what the Hell I’m talking about, this ain’t for you. But if the first thing you are going to do when the Good Lord calls your number is find the men who sat in that tiny mission in San Antonio and shake their hands, then you’re the reason I wrote this night, and this is for you.
So until next time you hear from me, God Bless and Happy Texas Independence Day.
God Bless Texas
Papa Ray
139.
Charles: Have we entered, or are we entering a similar period of danger for the legitimate church?
………
I’m freaking stunned by how how little people take seriously the intentions of the pagan left.
the christian retreat from the public square has been unabated for 50 years through both republican and democratic admin.
intolerant? there is no quarter in this jezebel game. and there is no static boundary. the boundary has always moved. right now that boundary encroaches and steadily circumscribes the activities of christendom.
christians will absolutely come under persecution that will be ever more severe in only a couple generations if trends are not reversed.
All: one good thing I can truthfully say about the People’s Republic of Austin: it’s the only place I’ve been where the tattooed women are beautiful–or at least many of them are.
Why a gorgeous woman in the sweet, heart-pounding bloom of youth (that’s my heart, anyway) would cover her sweet skin with pictures is beyond me. Maybe a little butterfly here, a discreet rose there, but beyond that I just don’t get it.
As all who’ve know an old military man know, those tattoos will be ugly before you know it. Ahhh!! I can’t stand it!!
@Charles #149
We will (all of us, regardless of faith) be so lucky if it’s only “a couple of generations” before violent persecution comes on Christians in America. It’s already there in Europe, if you’re unfortunate enough to rub shoulders with the Islamic communities.
It is much, much more likely to come to North America quickly, now that the time we live in seem to be on fast-forward. All you would need is a good crisis to take advantage of–maybe a civil insurrection that can be blamed on “Christians”?
Regardless, the power of faith in Christ–which creates “Christians” in the sense of the label from the people of Antioch–comes not from church buildings or traditions or ritual, but in the headship of Christ over each believer. When the Church (big “C”) is bottled in state-controlled forms, no matter how overtly they are exercised, then Christians lose any real power as they substitute a secular head for Christ. They become just “good people”–until of course what is “good” becomes redefined according to the new religion of Islam, Environmentalism, Secular Humanism, or etc.
Another point to ponder: why do so many seemingly energetic and earnest pastors burn out after just a few years? Answer: they attempt to do too much, conforming themselves to the complete leadership role “expected” of them and attempting to preach, teach, comfort, manage, and etc., whereas the Church of Acts split these things across smaller more agile Church groups (house churches) and each person brought their own particular “gifts” to their groups.
Every wise pastor should shuck off the statist chains before they are yanked taught, and ditch the aberrations of expensive buildings and the pride of congregation size rather than congregation quality.
–JC
Bob, be careful if you don’t have a gun ;-/
Papa Ray, I don’t remember having read a Texan complaining on Texas
Re: JC in KZ, #151
If persecution of Christians does come to North America in the near term, it will be because those doing the persecuting sense that Christians lack the will to fight back.
Methinks the persecutors will be in for a very rude awakening.
Marie Claude (#152): “Bob, be careful if you don’t have a gun”
I remember bursting out laughing when I first saw this less well-known song. Even funnier when we consider the singer’s future decisions. (If you’re a young’un, please don’t play this in school, for your own good.)
o/t, but a good set o links updating latest not-spookily-deep-but-deeper-than-just-below-surface-and-therfore-spooky-enough (pant pant whew) happenings in Spill Zone:
http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/102416/
floating bombs washing ashore in Albania, just between Mrs. Hippie and Floored Her.
plus, between*the*lines, see how to discuss practical defense against alien invasion by assuming ‘alien’ ta mean ‘from outer space’ –and heck, that’s dangerous too, Steven Hawking just said so! So did Bobbie Fisher –who just got disinterred today, for dna tests. remember, he died at 64 –exactly the same number as squares on a chessboard!
buddy (#155):
Hang on Spooky, Spooky hang on!
146. Bob
Without taking any position in the matter, surely the Jefferson quote can be understood rhetorically?
As I noted previously, it could serve as a subject for its own thread, although I’m not sure that would be a productive endeavor. That said, there are two aspects to the answer to your question. First, it depends on what you mean by the term “understand”, and second, without taking a position the question cannot be meaningfully answered at all.
If by understanding you mean the capacity to intellectually formulate and articulate an explanation, interpretation, etc. of something which satisfies you, or even others, then yes, it could be understood rhetorically, or metaphorically, or even allegorically.
If, however, by understanding you also require that the explanation, interpretation, etc. actually be correct, or true as the logicians would say, then that is a different matter entirely. My position is that if you proffer an explanation or interpretation of something that that is factually incorrect, then no matter how convincing, compelling, ingenious or plausible it may be, you cannot be said to understand it.
If in the matter of the Jefferson quote, for example, our choices are that either he actually meant what he said, literally, or he was speaking rhetorically, there is no avoiding taking a position. Whether you say yea and I say nay, or vice versa, one of us is right and the other wrong, or more precisely, one of us understands it and the other misunderstands it.
Let’s consider another example. When the Founders, Jefferson included, said in the Declaration of Independence that “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness,…” were they speaking rhetorically, or did they actually believe and mean what the words they put on parchment said?
If their words were mere rhetoric, or terms of art (after the fashion of the times) for political expedience, then for my part that would diminish, degrade and severely undermine the foundational underpinnings of the Republic.
For me it is not really a question of understanding, but of choice. On the questions of preserving our nation mere understanding, or in far too many instances the conceit of understanding, without belief, faith and trust is worse than meaningless, it is dangerous, destructive and possibly fatal to our survival.
I choose to believe that the Founders said what they meant and meant what they said, and I believe the historical record of their actions, collectively, confirms that. If they did not then I never “understood” at all what it was all about, and my whole life I will have believed in a lie. But, I think not! I can’t “prove” that, but I am content with my choices! Thank you for your patience in listening.
tharkun (#147):
Thanks for the lengthy reply. The main reason I’m not staking out a position in the “What did the Founding Fathers really believe” debate (other than the fact I’m not enough of an expert to tease out a definitive answer for all of them) is that I don’t really care. Were you to somehow demonstrate that Moses, Jesus, or TPSWPBUH were unbelievers, that would be of great relevance. In the case of the Fathers, I consider that irrelevant: I regard them as merely(!) wise men. By their works I know them. Their religious beliefs? Don’t care. (Which certainly doesn’t mean it isn’t intellectually interesting; it just doesn’t affect my thoughts as to their creation.) (My own opinion: I consider it difficult to deny that most Fathers were at least Deists.)
Your final paragraphs certainly raise thoughts about “useful myths”.
No offense taken, I hope. I’ll leave you with Psalms 127:1.
Buddy. You got it. Reynolds and Den Beste are trying to be sarcastic. I contend sarcasm has long ago ceased to provoke the desired result because the targets of the sarcasm are the most callous men ever to exist.
Emperor Zero, and perhaps more importantly the men who prop the fool up and pull his strings, are beyond embarrassment. Such people are not stupid, they are evil, and will continue to do what they wish, and to hell with you.
Pascal (#139, #159):
If your goal was to make Obama et al repent, then you might be a good man, but you were somewhat naive. It was always highly unlikely that you could educate, ridicule or shame them into following your path. Rather, the audience for any sarcasm, satire, ridicule and whatnot that you might wish to employ is the uncommitted public.
they care as much –more even –about their names as any sobersides from Smallville. It’s just that their audience is different. Hieronymus Bosch identified that audience, as well as its preferred interaction with the rest of us.
Some of them are “liberation theologists” –with which they try to make disagreement into blasphemy.
Bob, pretty close to my point.
What you just wrote to me I’m hoping you may explain to the uncommitted public why Obama et al. are not responding to the sarcasm that has been writing itself. These are not mistakes, but deliberate destruction. Fortunately I’m not alone in making that assertion, and I am glad for the company. Unfortunately, there are some who will act like loons and overstate the case with the intent of discrediting all of us who are decrying this destruction.
Ragnar D knows too that I distrust those who’ve used the ideas of Ayn Rand to garner the aid and allegiance of libertarians to aid in the building of the state. The GOP has been rife in our destruction as the looters have been funding both parties. Alan Greenspan, her most prominent acolyte, aided the looters with how he ruled the Fed. It always troubled me how close he seemed to the Clintons. I only wrote it off as his need to retain his appointment. At the time I didn’t yet see how destructive his reign at the Fed would be.
The nihilists are not simply on the Left. If you recall, in Atlas Shrugged, they were also in the elite — bloodless Titans, really, not men.
Dagny had retired to their hideout while her old and decent — and yes naive — friend Eddie, in his misplaced loyalty to her, got torn apart by the mob that was attacking Dagny’s beloved railroad (that she herself had shrugged).
These bastards are out to set us against each other and arise from the ashes (the meaning of the Phoenix pin their women wear) to claim the remains.
Only God will stop them, likely through a few good men He inspires. Hence the targeting of His Church.
…likely through a few good men He inspires. Hence the targeting of His Church and His teachings (begun long before Madalyn Murray O’Hair.) The object is to eliminate the morally straight. But as in the case of Pharaoh slaughtering of the male babies of the slaves to prevent the foretold rebellion, it will be in vain and to their eternal discredit.
God Bless America.
Pascal, re Pharoah, remember the slaughter of the innocents began under Pharoah in the here and now with Roe v Wade. Those of us coming late to the fight –and that includes me, so i’m not trying to play one-up –need to remember how impure we are.
I can’t vouch for others, but I’ve been kicked out of forums rather than let my voice be silenced by PC techniques that I didn’t understand until recently. So I won’t accept your charge that I’ve been impure — in that area at least. (Oops you didn’t charge me — but I am guilty of being so naive as not seeing the need to prepare for attempts to bully me into silence.)
And with God’s blessing, we can beg forgiveness for being so willing to have been misled. Naivety may apply to some things, but I’ve my doubts that our generation was all that naive about the issue you raise.
I’ve an essay laying about incomplete with the title “PC: The Weak Link On Your Chains” that mocks us for letting PC become the tyranny over us that it has. You may know I already re-designated PC as “politically cowered” for reasons that nobody seems to understand.
that wasn’t a charge, pascal –that was just my thought off your mention of Pharoah. note he got away with the slaughter –paid later, but the populace didn’t uprise while the blood flowed. The forge wasn’t hot enough yet, as papa ray might say.
Don’t miss this over at instapundit –it goes to that late 70s tv series Connections –and from there into the Rules of St. Benedict –intensely interesting stuff –
WELCOME TO ROME.
Posted at 4:28 pm by Glenn Reynolds
Texas… lived there for 3 years, about 80m west from FW. Hope that one day I’ll return. Loved the place.
One of the most distinctive features of TX is self-respect. You can just breathe it in and smell it, more in rural areas than in cities, but it permeates. Not self-esteem, a fake make-believe dysfunctional crap, made in Californica. A genuine trait.
That is probably why Texans are so friendly (nothin’ fake in their friendliness) and helpful.
http://www.legendsofamerica.com/we-codewest.html
(people laugh at such old nostrums, but heck take a look –it’s kinda neat)