The Hot Gates - 480BC. An event that was to determine what path much of the Western World would follow occurred as the Persian army threatened to overwhelm Greece in 480BC. The West today again faces both external and internal threats to its identity and existence.
Wednesday, October 22, 2014
Expected Return to Posting
I apologize for leaving in late July with no notice, but personal matters required that temporarily move out of New Jersey in order to assist a family member. During this time I have very limited access to a computer. I expect to return to NJ in late November of this year.
Tuesday, July 15, 2014
Marvel Comics Changes Thor Into a Woman
For the record, there is still a very slight chance that this a hoax, but considering the anti-male attitudes in the Western world, it is most likely true.
The Left has employed the most radical of feminists to attack both men and women from all angles. Pornography (for example) once derided by feminists for degrading women, is now billed as a means of empowering and liberating them.
The dismantling of manliness, however, hits from every direction. Fatherhood is seen as an institution that is at best of no value and more often than not inherently dangerous to women and children. We are told that a brain and body shaped from both in utero and puberty baths of testosterone provide no advantage in either regular fighting nor combat. They also assure us that the male brain does not produce any inherent differences in thinking nor for mathematical or spatial labors.
I think that we now have proof that we have hit rock bottom in the cultural dismembering of the male.
The hammer-god is the quintessential example of the male warrior. It's origins goes back to the days before the first migrations of Indo-European (IE) speakers from their homeland north of the Black Sea*. The hammer (or early mace) too has ancient origins (before the sword) among these warrior-raiders who in time would either displace completely, or at least politically dominate, those of of communities in India, northern and western Asia, and virtually all of Europe; in Kurgan-type graves - even from the period before the advent of a full Bronze Age, archaeologists have found maces and short-handled war hammers made of copper. Warrior heroes of that time were not the same as modern heroes - they were known for taking what they would, be it lands, labor, wealth or sources of wealth, glory, and (something that makes us cringe today) women. These practices are recorded in the stories, of Indra, Achilleus (Achilles), Theseus, Cuchulain, Siegfried, and others. Even in remote regions long settled by their descendants (Western Ireland the Scottish Highlands into recent centuries- earlier than that the Romans were perplexed at the practices of the indigenous in Hispana), cattle-raiding was treated at the very least as a necessary rite of passage for young men who continued their version of going a-viking before they could be considered to be full members of the clan. It was not until later ages, especially when writing was done in a large part by Christian monks, that heroes such as Beowulf were memorialized only for their bravery and noble actions.
The slow change of these heroes into god-figures was also orientated towards masculinity. The earliest "sky-father" gods (Dyas Pater - later becoming Zeus and Ju-piter among the Greeks and Romans) were the storm gods. In some IE-founded societies, such as those of the Germans/Scandinavians and Celts/Gauls, the hammer-god was to some extent merged with the storm/sky father god Thor with the former, and Taranis/Tuirean for the Gauls and Irish Celts respectively. The Slavs, Balts, Hittites, and others also had storm god names that clearly indicate a similar early IE origin. They were very much male in character and - for lack of a better word, body.
Thor's place in Marvel comic books was no different; he was as manly a character as they came.
Now, we again are being led to believe that men and women are fully interchangeable as characters or for roles. -And again men and boys cannot have anything or anyone of their own with whom they can identify or whom they can idolize or emulate.
The bizarre mindset that testosterone makes for no appreciable difference has become so entrenched that even a veterinarian who treated our police K9's (and whom I find to be a very manly (and quite intelligent) individual), once scoffed at the common-sense remark that neutered dogs were almost never aggressive enough to be trained to fight and apprehend criminal suspects. The fact that this response came from a professional who also neutered male cattle for a living - so that they would not become bulls, only served to prove to me that Cultural Marxism was gaining ground.
Expect Santa Claus, Paul Bunyan, and others to be next.
*The actual location of the IE homeland is disputed. Some argue for Anatolian or Balkan origins but I have yet to find convincing evidence for any region other than the forests and steppes above the Black Sea region.
http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2014/07/15/thor-is-now-woman/
"........Marvel Comics announced that their male hero of yore was no longer worthy to hold the mighty hammer Mjölnir.......
"The inscription on Thor’s hammer reads ‘Whosoever holds this hammer, if HE be worthy, shall possess the power of Thor.’ Well it’s time to update that inscription," said Marvel editor Wil Moss in a statement. "The new Thor continues Marvel’s proud tradition of strong female characters like Captain Marvel, Storm, Black Widow and more. And this new Thor isn’t a temporary female substitute – she’s now the one and only Thor, and she is worthy!"
"This is not She-Thor. This is not Lady Thor. This is not Thorita. This is THOR,” said writer Jason Aaron. “This is the THOR of the Marvel Universe. But it’s unlike any Thor we’ve ever seen before."......."
The Left has employed the most radical of feminists to attack both men and women from all angles. Pornography (for example) once derided by feminists for degrading women, is now billed as a means of empowering and liberating them.
The dismantling of manliness, however, hits from every direction. Fatherhood is seen as an institution that is at best of no value and more often than not inherently dangerous to women and children. We are told that a brain and body shaped from both in utero and puberty baths of testosterone provide no advantage in either regular fighting nor combat. They also assure us that the male brain does not produce any inherent differences in thinking nor for mathematical or spatial labors.
I think that we now have proof that we have hit rock bottom in the cultural dismembering of the male.
The hammer-god is the quintessential example of the male warrior. It's origins goes back to the days before the first migrations of Indo-European (IE) speakers from their homeland north of the Black Sea*. The hammer (or early mace) too has ancient origins (before the sword) among these warrior-raiders who in time would either displace completely, or at least politically dominate, those of of communities in India, northern and western Asia, and virtually all of Europe; in Kurgan-type graves - even from the period before the advent of a full Bronze Age, archaeologists have found maces and short-handled war hammers made of copper. Warrior heroes of that time were not the same as modern heroes - they were known for taking what they would, be it lands, labor, wealth or sources of wealth, glory, and (something that makes us cringe today) women. These practices are recorded in the stories, of Indra, Achilleus (Achilles), Theseus, Cuchulain, Siegfried, and others. Even in remote regions long settled by their descendants (Western Ireland the Scottish Highlands into recent centuries- earlier than that the Romans were perplexed at the practices of the indigenous in Hispana), cattle-raiding was treated at the very least as a necessary rite of passage for young men who continued their version of going a-viking before they could be considered to be full members of the clan. It was not until later ages, especially when writing was done in a large part by Christian monks, that heroes such as Beowulf were memorialized only for their bravery and noble actions.
The slow change of these heroes into god-figures was also orientated towards masculinity. The earliest "sky-father" gods (Dyas Pater - later becoming Zeus and Ju-piter among the Greeks and Romans) were the storm gods. In some IE-founded societies, such as those of the Germans/Scandinavians and Celts/Gauls, the hammer-god was to some extent merged with the storm/sky father god Thor with the former, and Taranis/Tuirean for the Gauls and Irish Celts respectively. The Slavs, Balts, Hittites, and others also had storm god names that clearly indicate a similar early IE origin. They were very much male in character and - for lack of a better word, body.
Thor's place in Marvel comic books was no different; he was as manly a character as they came.
Now, we again are being led to believe that men and women are fully interchangeable as characters or for roles. -And again men and boys cannot have anything or anyone of their own with whom they can identify or whom they can idolize or emulate.
The bizarre mindset that testosterone makes for no appreciable difference has become so entrenched that even a veterinarian who treated our police K9's (and whom I find to be a very manly (and quite intelligent) individual), once scoffed at the common-sense remark that neutered dogs were almost never aggressive enough to be trained to fight and apprehend criminal suspects. The fact that this response came from a professional who also neutered male cattle for a living - so that they would not become bulls, only served to prove to me that Cultural Marxism was gaining ground.
Expect Santa Claus, Paul Bunyan, and others to be next.
*The actual location of the IE homeland is disputed. Some argue for Anatolian or Balkan origins but I have yet to find convincing evidence for any region other than the forests and steppes above the Black Sea region.
http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2014/07/15/thor-is-now-woman/
"........Marvel Comics announced that their male hero of yore was no longer worthy to hold the mighty hammer Mjölnir.......
"The inscription on Thor’s hammer reads ‘Whosoever holds this hammer, if HE be worthy, shall possess the power of Thor.’ Well it’s time to update that inscription," said Marvel editor Wil Moss in a statement. "The new Thor continues Marvel’s proud tradition of strong female characters like Captain Marvel, Storm, Black Widow and more. And this new Thor isn’t a temporary female substitute – she’s now the one and only Thor, and she is worthy!"
"This is not She-Thor. This is not Lady Thor. This is not Thorita. This is THOR,” said writer Jason Aaron. “This is the THOR of the Marvel Universe. But it’s unlike any Thor we’ve ever seen before."......."
Monday, July 14, 2014
Ann Coulter - Hope of Amnesty Reason for Surge of Illegals
Now, if only the rest of the non-Leftists will accept this dose of reality.
http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-TV/2014/07/14/Ann-Coulter-We-Cant-Take-Everyone-All-Countries-Suck-Compared-To-America
Monday at the Heritage Foundation, Conservative author Ann Coulter's spoke with the "The Daily Signal" about the unfolding humanitarian crisis of thousands of unaccompanied minors illegal migrants flowing across the U.S.-Mexico border...........
Coulter blasted "idiot Republicans" for bemoaning their failure to pass immigration reform saying, "Do they understand that people are coming to this country because they think they're going to get amnesty? So only if only we had given amnesty -- it's not even a illogical, its counter logic. It's the opposite of logic. It's madness. No, we want a barbed-wire fence."
Her solution: "We've just got to get rid of this refugee policy. What are we gonna do take the entire world? ........
http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-TV/2014/07/14/Ann-Coulter-We-Cant-Take-Everyone-All-Countries-Suck-Compared-To-America
Monday at the Heritage Foundation, Conservative author Ann Coulter's spoke with the "The Daily Signal" about the unfolding humanitarian crisis of thousands of unaccompanied minors illegal migrants flowing across the U.S.-Mexico border...........
Coulter blasted "idiot Republicans" for bemoaning their failure to pass immigration reform saying, "Do they understand that people are coming to this country because they think they're going to get amnesty? So only if only we had given amnesty -- it's not even a illogical, its counter logic. It's the opposite of logic. It's madness. No, we want a barbed-wire fence."
Her solution: "We've just got to get rid of this refugee policy. What are we gonna do take the entire world? ........
[Prior to the following quote from the video in the link, Ms.Coulter sums up her arguments by noting that most of those who support treating illegals as refugees also tend to hold that the US is a terrible country and wonders why they would want to allow them to come to such an awful place. She then takes note of the irony that the very same people also insist that the US is the only place for all supposed refugees]
"All countries suck compared to America. Is that the standard?"
Sunday, July 13, 2014
There is no shame in our society, and there are two separate nations within the US,
If you protect marriage, the unborn, the right to exercise one's conscience, express the faith that was a pillar of the nation, or even engage in practices such as hunting or fishing, you will be targeted. The plan is simple - to frighten any and all from doing what the Left and their radical allies don't like.
A young lady named Kendall Jones likes to hunt, and her family has sufficient funds to pay for a hunting trip to Africa. The firestorm of hatred and threats that followed the posting of her hunt photos led to this response:
https://www.facebook.com/kendalltakeswild
"Ok I'm gonna explain for the 53567544th time. The rhino was a green hunt, meaning it was darted and immobilized in order to draw blood for testing, DNA profiling, microchip ping the horn and treating a massive leg injury most likely caused by lions. People try to say that lions will not attack a hippo, rhino or elephant, quiet the contrary. Lions attack and kill the young of these species. The adults try to fight the lions off and are regularly successful, but do get injuries in the process. As for the lion that I shot with my bow, it was within a 45,000 acre fence with other lions and plains game. It's in S Africa, so yes it was within a fence, but 45,000 acres is the equivalent to 70 square miles and considered fair chase. Lions that have come in and taken over a pride, not only kick the older lion out, but will also kill all of his cubs so that the lioness will come into heat again. Controlling the male lion population is important within large fenced areas like these in order to make sure the cubs have a high survival rate. Funds from a hunt like this goes partially to the government for permits but also to the farm owner as an incentive to keep and raise lions on their property. If there was no value, the farmers would kill all of the lions to have a higher survival and breeding rate in their plains game populations. Lions take a toll on plains game, thus farmers need money to purchase plains game and change out bloodlines within their lion prides to prevent interbreeding. Now to the leopard, this was a free ranging leopard in Zimbabwe on communal land. The money for the permit goes to the communal council and to their village people. Within this area of approximately 250,000 acres, 107 head of cattle was killed in a single year due to leopard kills. Leopard populations have to be controlled in certain areas. So yes, my efforts do go to conservation efforts and are all fair chase, not canned hunts. In fact these are very mentally and physically challenging hunts, on foot tracking and walking miles and miles a day."
If you protect marriage, the unborn, the right to exercise one's conscience, express the faith that was a pillar of the nation, or even engage in practices such as hunting or fishing, you will be targeted. The plan is simple - to frighten any and all from doing what the Left and their radical allies don't like.
A young lady named Kendall Jones likes to hunt, and her family has sufficient funds to pay for a hunting trip to Africa. The firestorm of hatred and threats that followed the posting of her hunt photos led to this response:
https://www.facebook.com/kendalltakeswild
"Ok I'm gonna explain for the 53567544th time. The rhino was a green hunt, meaning it was darted and immobilized in order to draw blood for testing, DNA profiling, microchip ping the horn and treating a massive leg injury most likely caused by lions. People try to say that lions will not attack a hippo, rhino or elephant, quiet the contrary. Lions attack and kill the young of these species. The adults try to fight the lions off and are regularly successful, but do get injuries in the process. As for the lion that I shot with my bow, it was within a 45,000 acre fence with other lions and plains game. It's in S Africa, so yes it was within a fence, but 45,000 acres is the equivalent to 70 square miles and considered fair chase. Lions that have come in and taken over a pride, not only kick the older lion out, but will also kill all of his cubs so that the lioness will come into heat again. Controlling the male lion population is important within large fenced areas like these in order to make sure the cubs have a high survival rate. Funds from a hunt like this goes partially to the government for permits but also to the farm owner as an incentive to keep and raise lions on their property. If there was no value, the farmers would kill all of the lions to have a higher survival and breeding rate in their plains game populations. Lions take a toll on plains game, thus farmers need money to purchase plains game and change out bloodlines within their lion prides to prevent interbreeding. Now to the leopard, this was a free ranging leopard in Zimbabwe on communal land. The money for the permit goes to the communal council and to their village people. Within this area of approximately 250,000 acres, 107 head of cattle was killed in a single year due to leopard kills. Leopard populations have to be controlled in certain areas. So yes, my efforts do go to conservation efforts and are all fair chase, not canned hunts. In fact these are very mentally and physically challenging hunts, on foot tracking and walking miles and miles a day."
The threats and regular abuse were however less than satisfactory for one pig in Virginia. His response was to offer money to anyone who could provide compromising photos of the young lady. His move served two purposes; he gets to frighten others into refraining from hunting and to feed his sick, perverted mind.
As have noted previously, less than two hundred years ago, this coward would have been slapped in the face by a real man and informed that he had until the next morning to decide to use pistols or swords.
http://www.ijreview.com/2014/07/155770-dem-candidate-offers-100k-xxx-photos-conservative-teen-twitter-profile-reveals/
"Mike Dickinson is campaigning for Congress in the 7th Congressional district of Virginia. On Wednesday, Dickinson, who has it out for Texas cheerleader and big game hunter Kendall Jones, tweeted:
"I have 100k to anyone who has nude photos or videos of #kendalljones at Texas tech. She deserves to be a target
11:54 AM - 9 Jul 2014
42 RETWEETS 9 FAVORITES"
http://www.ijreview.com/2014/07/155770-dem-candidate-offers-100k-xxx-photos-conservative-teen-twitter-profile-reveals/
"Mike Dickinson is campaigning for Congress in the 7th Congressional district of Virginia. On Wednesday, Dickinson, who has it out for Texas cheerleader and big game hunter Kendall Jones, tweeted:
"I have 100k to anyone who has nude photos or videos of #kendalljones at Texas tech. She deserves to be a target
11:54 AM - 9 Jul 2014
42 RETWEETS 9 FAVORITES"
Thursday, July 10, 2014
Glenn Beck Supports Crush of Illegals
There are times when even the most hitherto loyal Americans either switch sides or show their true colors.
Glenn Beck has amassed a fortune by exposing troubling political and societal trends and generally espousing conservative views. I noted on a previous post, however, that his insistence that violence in defense of freedom in any case was wrong went a great distance towards a self-inflicted destruction his own credibility. What got him on that subject was the BLM/Cliven Bundy standoff a few months ago, but his remarks were clearly meant to decry violence in under any circumstance*, which is quite problematic in a nation that would not exist had it not been for people who were willing to fight; you can't honestly identify yourself as an American if you begin with the premise that it is never justifiable to commit violent acts.
Now Glenn Beck has taken to effectively advocate what is the City of Gold for the Left - a policy of allowing anyone and everyone who wishes to move to the US to do so. The idea of Open Borders the ultimate goal for the Left in all Western nations
- It works perfectly with their position that all sovereign nations must be done away with.
- It is the best means to erase any sense of identity of the citizens of any particular nation.
-In the vast majority of cases immigrants from Third World nations contribute to the welfare burden and vote overwhelmingly for Left-leaning political parties.
I am done with Beck. To take his arguments to their logical conclusion, we could well have a US that in which those of those Western European descent, together with 4th generation or greater African-Americans, are a tiny minority in a very short period of time. Demography determines the politics and societal makeup of nations.
I will leave out further comments and let Beck speak for himself.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2014/07/08/Glenn-Beck-to-Bring-Soccer-Balls-Hot-Meals-to-Illegals-We-Must-Open-Our-Hearts?utm_source=contentsharing&utm_medium=linkexchange&utm_term=postion3&utm_content=Glenn-Beck-to-Bring-Soccer-Balls-Hot-Meals-to-Illegals-We-Must-Open-Our-Hearts&utm_campaign=foxnews
*http://thehotgates480bc.blogspot.com/2014/04/glenn-beck-misrepresents-desperate.html
*http://thehotgates480bc.blogspot.com/2014/05/glenn-beck-has-frighteningly-bizarre.html
http://thehotgates480bc.blogspot.com/2012/11/glenn-beck-also-against-secession.html
Glenn Beck has amassed a fortune by exposing troubling political and societal trends and generally espousing conservative views. I noted on a previous post, however, that his insistence that violence in defense of freedom in any case was wrong went a great distance towards a self-inflicted destruction his own credibility. What got him on that subject was the BLM/Cliven Bundy standoff a few months ago, but his remarks were clearly meant to decry violence in under any circumstance*, which is quite problematic in a nation that would not exist had it not been for people who were willing to fight; you can't honestly identify yourself as an American if you begin with the premise that it is never justifiable to commit violent acts.
Now Glenn Beck has taken to effectively advocate what is the City of Gold for the Left - a policy of allowing anyone and everyone who wishes to move to the US to do so. The idea of Open Borders the ultimate goal for the Left in all Western nations
- It works perfectly with their position that all sovereign nations must be done away with.
- It is the best means to erase any sense of identity of the citizens of any particular nation.
-In the vast majority of cases immigrants from Third World nations contribute to the welfare burden and vote overwhelmingly for Left-leaning political parties.
I am done with Beck. To take his arguments to their logical conclusion, we could well have a US that in which those of those Western European descent, together with 4th generation or greater African-Americans, are a tiny minority in a very short period of time. Demography determines the politics and societal makeup of nations.
I will leave out further comments and let Beck speak for himself.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2014/07/08/Glenn-Beck-to-Bring-Soccer-Balls-Hot-Meals-to-Illegals-We-Must-Open-Our-Hearts?utm_source=contentsharing&utm_medium=linkexchange&utm_term=postion3&utm_content=Glenn-Beck-to-Bring-Soccer-Balls-Hot-Meals-to-Illegals-We-Must-Open-Our-Hearts&utm_campaign=foxnews
"On July 19, Beck will travel to McAllen, Texas, because he believes Americans must "open our hearts" to the illegal immigrant children who have been unlawfully entering the country..............
Beck said helping illegal immigrant children, most of whom have fled Central American nations, was more "right" to him than even calling out radical Islam.
“We’re going to fill some tractor-trailers with food, with water,” Beck said. “The churches have asked us if we could bring teddy bears and soccer balls, so we’ve loaded up a whole tractor-trailer of nothing but teddy bears and soccer balls. And then I’m going to go serve breakfast and lunch, and I’m going to help unload these trucks, hot meals for 3,000. That’s what we’re doing.”
Some illegal immigrants have been found to have contagious diseases and dangerous gang affiliations, but Beck also emphasized that the United States should be accessible to "all those fleeing poverty and violence."
“Through no fault of their own, they are caught in political crossfire,” Beck said. “And while we continue to put pressure on Washington and change its course of lawlessness, we must also help. It is not either, or. It is both. We have to be active in the political game, and we must open our hearts.”............"
Beck said helping illegal immigrant children, most of whom have fled Central American nations, was more "right" to him than even calling out radical Islam.
“We’re going to fill some tractor-trailers with food, with water,” Beck said. “The churches have asked us if we could bring teddy bears and soccer balls, so we’ve loaded up a whole tractor-trailer of nothing but teddy bears and soccer balls. And then I’m going to go serve breakfast and lunch, and I’m going to help unload these trucks, hot meals for 3,000. That’s what we’re doing.”
Some illegal immigrants have been found to have contagious diseases and dangerous gang affiliations, but Beck also emphasized that the United States should be accessible to "all those fleeing poverty and violence."
“Through no fault of their own, they are caught in political crossfire,” Beck said. “And while we continue to put pressure on Washington and change its course of lawlessness, we must also help. It is not either, or. It is both. We have to be active in the political game, and we must open our hearts.”............"
*http://thehotgates480bc.blogspot.com/2014/04/glenn-beck-misrepresents-desperate.html
*http://thehotgates480bc.blogspot.com/2014/05/glenn-beck-has-frighteningly-bizarre.html
http://thehotgates480bc.blogspot.com/2012/11/glenn-beck-also-against-secession.html
Wednesday, July 9, 2014
ISIS Attacking Churches, Shiite, and Possibly Sunni Shrines
The destruction of Christian churches and Shiite Shrines and Mosques by ISIS militants comes as no surprise. Although in the 1970's - 1980's (When Iran was the nation which we we were told was the big problem), we were told that Shiites were the dangerous radicals, Sunni Muslims have for some time proven that Orthodox Islam is the far greater threat. Shiites may not be the nicest of guys, but I have yet to read of widespread or organized destruction of Churches or Sunni mosques by those who subscribe to the position that a rightful caliph must have some connection to Mohammed's son-in-law.
When I read that individuals believed to be associated with ISIS had made remarks that appear to threaten the Kaaba*, however, I was as first perplexed. If ISIS is made up of Sunni radicals, why would they target what is considered the holiest place in Islam?
That got me thinking that there must be a Wahhabist element in ISIS. Wahhabism was an extremely puritanical school of Islam that played a key role in supporting the Saud family in their quest to rule Arabia. Articles that I read years ago about the war that resulted in the Saud dynasty noted that Wahhabists demanded at that time that anything not directly associated with Mohammed should be considered haram.
I felt that this could be a reason for the destruction of (again, among other things) what is believed by some to be the grave of the Biblical Jonah**. Showing any degree of reverence while visiting any location could well be labeled as idolatry by Wahhabists, and the same approach could be applied even to the rock of the Kaaba.
To offer an example of their influence, as Wahhabists constituted a key part of the forces at the disposal of the Saud clan, the saudi prince/sheikh (I can't recall his name) was left on one occasion with little option that to make a public display breaking his record player.
In time, the Saudis of course won the war and the throne of Arabia, but the Wahhabists have always held to the "we put you guys there and we can throw you out" attitude. This is why sharia law is so strictly enforced in Saudi Arabia, why women cannot drive nor leave their homes without accompanying male relatives, and is the reason behind the ever-present morality police.
Wahhabists have until now be consent to let the Saudi ruling family live the high life for decades, but if the Wikipedia*** article (among others I read tonight) is correct in claiming that ISIS subscribes the to Wahhabist point of view, the Saudi royal family may be wondering if their privileged position is in danger.
I will say one thing with a fairly high degree of certainty, though. If ISIS does in fact target the Kaaba, there could well be a major civil war within Sunni Islam.
*http://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/07/09/isis-destroys-shrines-and-mosques-sets-sights-on-mecca/
"Mostly comprised of Sunnis, ISIS surprised few when it vowed to destroy sites revered by the rival Shia sect. The two main blocs of Islam have been at odds for nearly 1,400 years because of a dispute over who was Prophet Muhammad's successor. The destruction of at least 10 ancient Shia shrines in Iraq has enraged the Shia government in Baghdad, as well as the Iranian regime, also Shia.
But an unverified threat to Mecca itself, the holy city in Sunni-dominated Saudi Arabia where Muslims believe they must make one pilgrimage during their lifetimes, was unprecedented. Allegedly tweeted by a member of the extremist group on a since-suspended account, the threat took aim at the most sacred beacon of the Muslim faith.
Mecca, home of Islam's most sacred mosque, Al-Masjid al-Haram, and its famed Kaaba, a cube-shaped, granite and marble building adorned with Koranic inscriptions and priceless relics like the golden rain spout, a purported footprint of Abraham and the black cornerstone believed to have been placed by Muhammad.
"By Allah's leave our sheikh al-Baghdadi led Mecca stone for those who worship (pilgrims) will kill you and God ' I will tear down the Ka'ba, the place of worship,” the alleged ISIS militant said on the social media site, according to reports from Turkish media adding that those of the Islamic faith should not be worshipping 'stones.'"
ISIS' beef with Mecca seems to be that Muslims have lost touch with the true meaning of their faith, according to the threat.
“People are going to Mecca to touch the stones, not for God,” reads another tweet from the same account. “I swear to God, if you conquer Saudi Arabia as we worship, none but Allah will demolish the Ka'ba.”......"
**http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2685923/Shocking-moment-ISIS-militants-sledgehammers-Mosul-tomb-Prophet-Jonah-50-blindfolded-bodies-massacred-south-Baghdad.html
"........ISIS militants took sledgehammers to Iraqi tombstones - smashing them to pieces.
The rebels, who are members of the Islamic State terror group, were filmed attacking centuries-old graves in the north-west city of Mosul in Ninevah province.
Donning balaclavas and black coats, they swung sledgehammers into the tombs, causing pieces of dust and stone to fly through the air.
One of the devastated tombstones belonged to the Prophet Jonah (Younis in Arabic) and was revered by Muslims and Christians alike, according to Iraqi authorities.
The prophet, who is the central figure in the Hebrew Bible's Book of Jonah, is best known for being swallowed by a fish or a whale, depending on translation........"
When I read that individuals believed to be associated with ISIS had made remarks that appear to threaten the Kaaba*, however, I was as first perplexed. If ISIS is made up of Sunni radicals, why would they target what is considered the holiest place in Islam?
That got me thinking that there must be a Wahhabist element in ISIS. Wahhabism was an extremely puritanical school of Islam that played a key role in supporting the Saud family in their quest to rule Arabia. Articles that I read years ago about the war that resulted in the Saud dynasty noted that Wahhabists demanded at that time that anything not directly associated with Mohammed should be considered haram.
I felt that this could be a reason for the destruction of (again, among other things) what is believed by some to be the grave of the Biblical Jonah**. Showing any degree of reverence while visiting any location could well be labeled as idolatry by Wahhabists, and the same approach could be applied even to the rock of the Kaaba.
To offer an example of their influence, as Wahhabists constituted a key part of the forces at the disposal of the Saud clan, the saudi prince/sheikh (I can't recall his name) was left on one occasion with little option that to make a public display breaking his record player.
In time, the Saudis of course won the war and the throne of Arabia, but the Wahhabists have always held to the "we put you guys there and we can throw you out" attitude. This is why sharia law is so strictly enforced in Saudi Arabia, why women cannot drive nor leave their homes without accompanying male relatives, and is the reason behind the ever-present morality police.
Wahhabists have until now be consent to let the Saudi ruling family live the high life for decades, but if the Wikipedia*** article (among others I read tonight) is correct in claiming that ISIS subscribes the to Wahhabist point of view, the Saudi royal family may be wondering if their privileged position is in danger.
I will say one thing with a fairly high degree of certainty, though. If ISIS does in fact target the Kaaba, there could well be a major civil war within Sunni Islam.
*http://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/07/09/isis-destroys-shrines-and-mosques-sets-sights-on-mecca/
"Mostly comprised of Sunnis, ISIS surprised few when it vowed to destroy sites revered by the rival Shia sect. The two main blocs of Islam have been at odds for nearly 1,400 years because of a dispute over who was Prophet Muhammad's successor. The destruction of at least 10 ancient Shia shrines in Iraq has enraged the Shia government in Baghdad, as well as the Iranian regime, also Shia.
But an unverified threat to Mecca itself, the holy city in Sunni-dominated Saudi Arabia where Muslims believe they must make one pilgrimage during their lifetimes, was unprecedented. Allegedly tweeted by a member of the extremist group on a since-suspended account, the threat took aim at the most sacred beacon of the Muslim faith.
Mecca, home of Islam's most sacred mosque, Al-Masjid al-Haram, and its famed Kaaba, a cube-shaped, granite and marble building adorned with Koranic inscriptions and priceless relics like the golden rain spout, a purported footprint of Abraham and the black cornerstone believed to have been placed by Muhammad.
"By Allah's leave our sheikh al-Baghdadi led Mecca stone for those who worship (pilgrims) will kill you and God ' I will tear down the Ka'ba, the place of worship,” the alleged ISIS militant said on the social media site, according to reports from Turkish media adding that those of the Islamic faith should not be worshipping 'stones.'"
ISIS' beef with Mecca seems to be that Muslims have lost touch with the true meaning of their faith, according to the threat.
“People are going to Mecca to touch the stones, not for God,” reads another tweet from the same account. “I swear to God, if you conquer Saudi Arabia as we worship, none but Allah will demolish the Ka'ba.”......"
**http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2685923/Shocking-moment-ISIS-militants-sledgehammers-Mosul-tomb-Prophet-Jonah-50-blindfolded-bodies-massacred-south-Baghdad.html
"........ISIS militants took sledgehammers to Iraqi tombstones - smashing them to pieces.
The rebels, who are members of the Islamic State terror group, were filmed attacking centuries-old graves in the north-west city of Mosul in Ninevah province.
Donning balaclavas and black coats, they swung sledgehammers into the tombs, causing pieces of dust and stone to fly through the air.
One of the devastated tombstones belonged to the Prophet Jonah (Younis in Arabic) and was revered by Muslims and Christians alike, according to Iraqi authorities.
The prophet, who is the central figure in the Hebrew Bible's Book of Jonah, is best known for being swallowed by a fish or a whale, depending on translation........"
Tuesday, July 8, 2014
NOW Lists Nuns Groups Among "Dirty 100"
The TV comedy series Seinfeld occasionally had Jerry Seinfeld mentioning a comic book world that was the polar opposite of that of his favorite comic book character Superman.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bizarro_World
"....In the Bizarro world of "Htrae" ("Earth" spelled backwards), society is ruled by the Bizarro Code which states "Us do opposite of all Earthly things! Us hate beauty! Us love ugliness! Is big crime to make anything perfect on Bizarro World!" In one episode, for example, a salesman is doing a brisk trade selling Bizarro bonds: "Guaranteed to lose money for you". Later, the mayor appoints Bizarro No. 1 to investigate a crime, "Because you are stupider than the entire Bizarro police force put together". This is intended and taken as a great compliment.........."
Today, the term has come to mean anything in which reality of inverted:
http://washingtonexaminer.com/article/2550562
"The National Organization for Women, one of the nation's largest pro-abortion lobbies, named a Catholic order of nuns to a list called “The Dirty 100,” a catalog of the 100 entities which filed lawsuits against theAffordable Care Act's contraception mandate.
The order of nuns NOW finds “dirty” are the Little Sisters of the Poor, a religious institute for women founded by St. Jeanne Jugan in 19th century France. They are dedicated to care of the elderly impoverished, and describe their spiritual charism as “grace of hospitality toward the aged poor.”
Today the Little Sisters operate 200 homes on five continents, and serve over 13,000 residents. In a promotional video for the order, Sister Camille Rose said “We celebrate the gift of life, the joy of living, and we care for the elderly poor. We try to make them happy in whatever way we can.” The nuns themselves live communally and take vows of poverty, chastity, obedience, and hospitality.
The Dirty 100 campaign has included a demonstration which took place outside theSupreme Court on March 25, and a petition on NOW's website, inviting supporters to “refuse to support businesses, nonprofits, and religious entities that have decided that their personal beliefs are more important than the rights of their employees.” NOW and its national leadership also promotes the campaign on Twitter, using the hashtag #Dirty100..........
The Little Sisters of the Poor were not the only Catholic organization put to shame by NOW's campaign. Priests for Life, an organization of priests and laity that advocates against the death penalty and abortion, as well as 12 Catholic dioceses were included on the list."
The Left and their radical allies are so wrapped up with enslaving some, and stripping away the rights of the rest, that their only reaction to individuals and groups that act truly selflessly and help others is to denigrate them and their work. This sick attitude is adequately illustrated by remarks made by Leftist publications such as Slate and atheists like the late Christopher Hitchens. Caring not at all for the plight of the poor, and having done even less for them, these types can think of no way to deal with their sense of failure to help their fellows than to attack and misrepresent anyone who actually dedicates his or her life to those in need.
Hitchens' sense of self-loathing was so strong that he could find no other means of wrestling with it other than to repeatedly claim that he hated (this exact word) Mother Theresa of Calcutta. People can debate the efficacy of the decisions she took in allocating the resources made available to her in her career all they want, but when those who spend their lives in clean, sanitary, and prosperous societies while giving little or nothing to help the poor, the very suggestion that one who did far more was not helpful does nothing but make the claimant look like a moron.
People such as the members The Little Sisters of the Poor, Mother Theresa (or those of her order), or anyone who sacrifices far more and exposes themselves to more dangers and diseases than we ever will are not ignored in our Orwellian Bizarro World - they are attacked, and mercilessly so. They are attacked for being less selfish than we are, for refusing to cower before the forces of enslavement and societal and spiritual decay as we often do (at least by our own inaction), and for the simple fact of being what we are not - examples of humility.
Sunday, July 6, 2014
Pro-Life, Pro-Marriage, Pro-Conscience Photo Draws Rape Remarks and More
In our dystopian society, we live by Big Brother's maxims:
".......Today we’re seeing a mother of three and wife of a Army combat-infantry vet get pummeled with hateful intolerance for simply being pro-life supporter of Hobby Lobby. - See more at: http://www.libertynews.com/2014/07/exclusive-intolerant-hateful-left-lashes-out-threatens-mom-of-3-in-response-to-her-viral-facebook-photo-supporting-hobby-lobby-pictures/#sthash.83UglIXM.dpuf.........
"This should be renamed “How to make a sensible person shake their head at a dumb bitch” – Josiah Peterman'
'This chick probably just takes it in the butt so that she doesn’t get pregnant. Hahaha – Blake Nolen'
'I’d hit it. Tell her I have a condom on. Then peace out on her and see if she’s wearin that shit in 36 weeks. Meanwhile I changed my number. Deuces! – Thomas Borchert'
'Or how to make yourself look like a homophobic, religious radical douche… yup you nailed it! – Corey Duncan'
All i see is a brainwashed woman [In truth she sees nothing of the sort, (nor what follows) but then again honesty is no longer something of value], with no original thought in her brain and will continue pushing women to be put back in their place, in the kitchen with no job and popping out babies, blaming women for rape because of way the she dresses..this is what she will teach her daughter, that you are an object to men, not their equal and you shouldn’t protect yourself from getting pregnant and push abstinence, that her daughter won’t follow and will either get birth control for herself if she is smart, or get pregnant.. then an ass hat who can’t put carts in the corral.. again brainwashed female, we are born not believing in anything, it is the parents who force an imaginary man, whose life is written by men in a fictional book. – Michelle Spear..................
I reached out to Holly and she said “one guy told me he would kill me by shoving the cup down my throat.” Holly says the response has been overwhelmingly positive in general........"
http://twitchy.com/2014/07/06/liberal-douchebag-to-conservative-mom-holly-fisher-i-would-love-to-let-a-jackass-rape-you/
Patrick Ryan Kasprik @PatKasprikFollow
@HollyRFisher Idgaf how patriotic you think you are - you're a sham of an American who would strip rights from others in the name of God
Patrick Ryan Kasprik @PatKasprikFollow
Hey @HollyRFisher so I was hoping you could fly on down to Florida so we could stone you to death? You know, religious fundamentalism...
12:33 PM - 6 Jul 2014
Patrick Ryan Kasprik @PatKasprikFollow
But seriously @HollyRFisher come on down. I would love to let a jackass rape you beforehand, you know, religious fundamentalism.
WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
The few who dare to dispute what is fed to them by the Left are no longer merely being mocked. Hateful of anyone who will not acquiesce to mind-altering and societal-rotting laws and regulations that only increase the power of the State at the expense of actual human rights, the bots now will stop at nothing in their attacks.
After the story of the Honorable Ms. Holly Fisher, take note the vicious comments made to and about her. In the case of those made by males (certainly not men), these disgusting cowards hide behind the laws that allow them to so in safety. As recently as 200 years ago, treating a woman in a manner that wasn't half as bad as we see today would end with a real man slapping the offender in the face and a demand to meet the following morning for his choice of pistols or swords to settle the matter.
It's well done- Chik-fil-A for Pro-Marriage, Pro-Life (self-explanatory), and Hobby Lobby for Pro-Conscience.
".......Today we’re seeing a mother of three and wife of a Army combat-infantry vet get pummeled with hateful intolerance for simply being pro-life supporter of Hobby Lobby. - See more at: http://www.libertynews.com/2014/07/exclusive-intolerant-hateful-left-lashes-out-threatens-mom-of-3-in-response-to-her-viral-facebook-photo-supporting-hobby-lobby-pictures/#sthash.83UglIXM.dpuf.........
"This should be renamed “How to make a sensible person shake their head at a dumb bitch” – Josiah Peterman'
'This chick probably just takes it in the butt so that she doesn’t get pregnant. Hahaha – Blake Nolen'
'I’d hit it. Tell her I have a condom on. Then peace out on her and see if she’s wearin that shit in 36 weeks. Meanwhile I changed my number. Deuces! – Thomas Borchert'
'Or how to make yourself look like a homophobic, religious radical douche… yup you nailed it! – Corey Duncan'
All i see is a brainwashed woman [In truth she sees nothing of the sort, (nor what follows) but then again honesty is no longer something of value], with no original thought in her brain and will continue pushing women to be put back in their place, in the kitchen with no job and popping out babies, blaming women for rape because of way the she dresses..this is what she will teach her daughter, that you are an object to men, not their equal and you shouldn’t protect yourself from getting pregnant and push abstinence, that her daughter won’t follow and will either get birth control for herself if she is smart, or get pregnant.. then an ass hat who can’t put carts in the corral.. again brainwashed female, we are born not believing in anything, it is the parents who force an imaginary man, whose life is written by men in a fictional book. – Michelle Spear..................
I reached out to Holly and she said “one guy told me he would kill me by shoving the cup down my throat.” Holly says the response has been overwhelmingly positive in general........"
It gets worse. You will have a hard time finding a male who is less of a man than this one:
http://twitchy.com/2014/07/06/liberal-douchebag-to-conservative-mom-holly-fisher-i-would-love-to-let-a-jackass-rape-you/
Patrick Ryan Kasprik @PatKasprikFollow
@HollyRFisher Idgaf how patriotic you think you are - you're a sham of an American who would strip rights from others in the name of God
[Note the knee-jerk act of projection above - Stripping rights of others is precisely and only what he advocates]
Patrick Ryan Kasprik @PatKasprikFollow
Hey @HollyRFisher so I was hoping you could fly on down to Florida so we could stone you to death? You know, religious fundamentalism...
12:33 PM - 6 Jul 2014
Patrick Ryan Kasprik @PatKasprikFollow
But seriously @HollyRFisher come on down. I would love to let a jackass rape you beforehand, you know, religious fundamentalism.
One day, a real man may recognize Patrick Ryan Kasprik from his photo and - Fields of Honor no longer being available, punch him at least twice right in his stupid, cowardly face
Friday, July 4, 2014
Cultural Marxism Creates U.S.-Hating Youth
From the Frankfurt School Cultural Marxism came to the US as Western European Marxists fled the Nazis. After gaining a foothold in Columbia University, the disease spread steadily as 'The long march through the institutions" continued.
Today, parents who themselves have not already fallen victim to the disease either have no idea of what is being taught even to their primary school children or take the easy way way and turn a blind eye to the contagion. Young people fortunate enough to find a college in which steps have been taken to weed out the infected in the ranks of academicians are a tiny minority.
Today, in the nation (of appreciable size) with the most lopsided good-to-bad ratio ever to have existed, the youth are largely ruined and revel in their ignorance:
http://twitchy.com/2014/07/04/10-hatriots-who-hate-july-4th-almost-as-much-as-they-hate-america-pics/
Here are some Twitter comments:
"I love people who are all "I hate America
america is the worst country in the world, i just pretend i like it on the fourth of july
The idea of America so fucked up. Fuck the holidays
America is a horrible country. Check the stats.[That is like saying check the stats, the Yankees have never won a World Series] Not celebrating the 4th of July. Favorite if you agree. #FuckAmerica
fuck america. idgaf about 4th of july.
america is the worst country on the planet today sucks
Fuck America !
America is an evil country !!!!!!!!!!
fuck America
i don't celebrate 4th of july, because fuck america"
unhappy fourth of july i hate america
Today, parents who themselves have not already fallen victim to the disease either have no idea of what is being taught even to their primary school children or take the easy way way and turn a blind eye to the contagion. Young people fortunate enough to find a college in which steps have been taken to weed out the infected in the ranks of academicians are a tiny minority.
Today, in the nation (of appreciable size) with the most lopsided good-to-bad ratio ever to have existed, the youth are largely ruined and revel in their ignorance:
http://twitchy.com/2014/07/04/10-hatriots-who-hate-july-4th-almost-as-much-as-they-hate-america-pics/
Here are some Twitter comments:
"I love people who are all "I hate America
america is the worst country in the world, i just pretend i like it on the fourth of july
The idea of America so fucked up. Fuck the holidays
America is a horrible country. Check the stats.[That is like saying check the stats, the Yankees have never won a World Series] Not celebrating the 4th of July. Favorite if you agree. #FuckAmerica
fuck america. idgaf about 4th of july.
america is the worst country on the planet today sucks
Fuck America !
America is an evil country !!!!!!!!!!
fuck America
i don't celebrate 4th of july, because fuck america"
unhappy fourth of july i hate america
Not one of them will ever leave though. They will remain to enjoy the best that this nation has to offer while doing their all to ensure that they are last last generation had any reason to like it.
Thursday, July 3, 2014
Border Patrol Agent - White House Aids Smuggling of Illegals
I have read a number of reports that both US Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents have become weary of being prevented from doing their jobs. The White House has ensured that deportations have ground to a halt while falsely pumping statistics by counting those turned away at the border as deportations. Illegals that have been detained are being cut loose* after being given hearing dates that (in the vast majority of cases) that will be casually ignored. The current crush of illegals, some of whom not only do not speak Spanish but only know native dialects ( making even Mayan/Quechua of no use to interpreters) has all the makings of an invasion without weapons**.
According to one Border Patrol Agent, though, lots of guns and drugs are being easily brought into the US while authorities have their hands full with the surge that brings us ever closer to becoming just another third wold nation - but not before we are bankrupted with yet more welfare recipients.
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/07/03/border-patrol-agent-apparently-defies-gag-order-to-go-unfiltered-on-cnn-hear-his-big-claim-about-obama-admin/
"Border Patrol agent Hector Garcia on Thursday accused the Obama administration of “aiding, abetting and facilitating the smuggling of illegal aliens across the border.”
In an interview with CNN, Garza said the current influx of illegal immigrants is “organized” and “orchestrated” by the drug cartels. Additionally, he said the federal government is giving illegal immigrants a “free pass.” He said the feds are using the equivalent of the honor system in asking illegal immigrants to later report to an immigration hearing — even though the majority of them will never do so.
With resources being diverted to process illegals, the crisis then allows drug cartels to sneak illegal drugs and weapons across the U.S. border undetected, he explained.
Garza later argued that U.S. taxpayers are going to be on the hook to provide for the immigrant families.
“How do you expect a mother from Honduras that is crossing the country with 3 to 5 children, and they’re all young-aged children, how do you expect for that mother who comes to this country to actually begin working?” he asked.
He continued: “This illegal alien who comes to this country with 3 to 5 kids is gonna depend on our welfare system, on government assistance. And you know what? That is costing the taxpayer a lot of money.”..........."
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*http://thehotgates480bc.blogspot.com/2014/05/new-illegal-immigrants-given-catch-and.html
"Officials Under Fire For Dumping Illegal Immigrants In U.S."
"Scores of illegal immigrants, caught by authorities in Texas trying to sneak into the country via the Rio Grande Valley, are being flown, bused and then abandoned out of state in places like Arizona, New York and Maryland.If the immigrants had been from Mexico, authorities would release them back across the border. But these would-be immigrants come from Central American countries, such as El Salvador and Guatemala, and trying to get them back to their country of origin has been a costly and largely unsuccessful endeavor.
Ira Mehlman, spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, told Reuters, “essentially, they have gotten successfully into the country and it’s unlikely that they’re going to leave.”
They are expected to return to Texas on their own once their deportation process nears completion in an honor system of sorts.
“After screening by DHS authorities, the family units will be released under supervision and required to report in to a local ICE office near their destination address within 15 days, where their cases will be managed in accordance with current ICE enforcement priorities,” according to an ICE statement........................"
Added -5/31/14 - I should have noted that the term "Catch and Release" is a reference to returning fish to the water after catching them on a hook and line.
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My internet is still giving me problems, so I still cannot cut and paste links. This article appeared on LatinoFoxNews and is dated May 30, 2014.
My internet is still giving me problems, so I still cannot cut and paste links. This article appeared on LatinoFoxNews and is dated May 30, 2014.
While we are subjected to false admonitions of a "humanitarian crisis" that are clearly designed to allow our feelings to overrule our sense of security, national sovereignty, Rule of Law, and concerns about the transformation of our electorate, the US government is quietly adding more illegal newcomers who will be eligible for taxpayer-funded benefits and who will in time be included among those who will be granted amnesty.
We must also keep in mind that every single "immigration reform" plan that has been hatched in the last few years is, despite the assurances that these are not cases of amnesty, nothing other than amnesty.
It's the polar opposite of "A rose by any other name....."
"Officials Under Fire For Dumping Illegal Immigrants In U.S."
"Scores of illegal immigrants, caught by authorities in Texas trying to sneak into the country via the Rio Grande Valley, are being flown, bused and then abandoned out of state in places like Arizona, New York and Maryland.If the immigrants had been from Mexico, authorities would release them back across the border. But these would-be immigrants come from Central American countries, such as El Salvador and Guatemala, and trying to get them back to their country of origin has been a costly and largely unsuccessful endeavor.
Ira Mehlman, spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, told Reuters, “essentially, they have gotten successfully into the country and it’s unlikely that they’re going to leave.”
[The reader is supposed to accept that nothing can be done and that we have no choice]
............Border Patrol agents in the Rio Grande Valley sector apprehended 154,453 immigrants last year – up from 97,762 the previous year.
More shockingly, some say, is the unprecedented surge of children making the more than 1,000-mile journey from Central America to the U.S.-Mexico border to escape violence in their home countries.
Multiple media outlets have reported horrific stories from border districts on youngsters, ranging from toddlers to teens, being raped and murdered on their way to the U.S. border.
............Border Patrol agents in the Rio Grande Valley sector apprehended 154,453 immigrants last year – up from 97,762 the previous year.
More shockingly, some say, is the unprecedented surge of children making the more than 1,000-mile journey from Central America to the U.S.-Mexico border to escape violence in their home countries.
Multiple media outlets have reported horrific stories from border districts on youngsters, ranging from toddlers to teens, being raped and murdered on their way to the U.S. border.
[Looks like reason enough to refrain from bringing children with you doesn't it?]
Floridalma Bineda Portillo and her two young boys were part of a group of about 400 Central Americans who were flown from Texas to Tucson last weekend. Bineda Portillo and others were then shuttled to Phoenix after the Tucson Greyhound station ran out of space.
Floridalma Bineda Portillo and her two young boys were part of a group of about 400 Central Americans who were flown from Texas to Tucson last weekend. Bineda Portillo and others were then shuttled to Phoenix after the Tucson Greyhound station ran out of space.
[I always thought that committing an illegal act while having children with you is at the very least a case of child abuse if not the criminal offense of employing a minor in the commission of an illegal act]
When they arrived at the station in Phoenix, a volunteer nurse found Bineda Portillo's five-year-old son, Hugo David, wheezing and struggling to breathe. His asthma inhaler had been lost when the family was processed by immigration. The boy's three-year-old brother developed a cold after sitting on the floor for hours in the detention center, his mother said.
"We all started crying because we didn't know what was going to happen to us. It was brutal," the Guatemala native said in Spanish.
When they arrived at the station in Phoenix, a volunteer nurse found Bineda Portillo's five-year-old son, Hugo David, wheezing and struggling to breathe. His asthma inhaler had been lost when the family was processed by immigration. The boy's three-year-old brother developed a cold after sitting on the floor for hours in the detention center, his mother said.
"We all started crying because we didn't know what was going to happen to us. It was brutal," the Guatemala native said in Spanish.
[and, when she left Guatemala, she supposedly thought that she knew what was going to happen?]
"This is a humanitarian crisis and it requires a humanitarian response," Senate Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., told Reuters.
Most of the families apprehended so far in Texas have been flown to Arizona and dropped off by the busload at the station in Phoenix by federal immigration authorities overwhelmed by a surge of families caught crossing the Mexican border into the Rio Grande Valley...................
"This is a humanitarian crisis and it requires a humanitarian response," Senate Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., told Reuters.
Most of the families apprehended so far in Texas have been flown to Arizona and dropped off by the busload at the station in Phoenix by federal immigration authorities overwhelmed by a surge of families caught crossing the Mexican border into the Rio Grande Valley...................
They are expected to return to Texas on their own once their deportation process nears completion in an honor system of sorts.
“After screening by DHS authorities, the family units will be released under supervision and required to report in to a local ICE office near their destination address within 15 days, where their cases will be managed in accordance with current ICE enforcement priorities,” according to an ICE statement........................"
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Illegals Turning US into A Camp of the Saints
In 1973, French author Jean Raspail penned The Camp of the Saints, a work that described a Western World-destroying scenario that takes place in the future.
It is impossible to provide a synopsis that does not spoil the end, so the best that I can do is to avoid details.
A massive amount of people from a non-western country decide that they want to live in a prosperous nation. When I say massive, I mean roughly a million people; enough to swamp a medium-size nation nation, use up all of its resources, and change the demographics to the extent that the citizens - those descended from the people who had made the country great, are either politically marginalized or in time become a small minority and entirely (And violently) subjugated. The result is a region (No longer a country as the sovereignty of nations falls via a domino effect) that is little different from the place that the invading "refugees" left in the first place.
The Western world, in the span of a few days of landing and what follows afterward, no longer exists but in the propagandized version cultivated by a the elite of a future Socialist superstate.
The flood is not performed by force of arms, that would enable the military, police, and People of the invaded nation to defend their border without misgivings or fear of international outrage and criminal prosecutions in the Hague. No, this is done in the most cowardly manner possible; a crush of unarmed people who will not be stopped but affect to show that they are no threat. Recall the suggestion by one Leftist a couple of years ago that all Arabs descended from they who had had left Israel in the Arab-Israeli wars gather en masse and begin entering the State of Israel - a play taken straight out of the book. The idea is that the IDF would either never be given the order to shoot or that the soldiers themselves would refuse to fire on the invaders as the latter do not demonstrate (Despite the overt aggression of their act) any obvious intentions to act with violence. In the book, the people of the West, full of White Guilt and memories of past atrocities that are wrongfully conflated with the situation of of the invaders, can't bring themselves to defend the land and country that was bequeathed to them by their ancestors. Violence of course follows once they are ashore, but by then it is too late. The People have been cowed into submission.
In the book, Leftists, anarchists, and all other haters of the culture and society that bred them and gave them an opportunity to live is a safe and prosperous nation celebrate the imminent arrival of the invaders. They revel in the soon-to come destruction. Those who dare express their concerns are shot down and labeled as racists or fascists.
Church leaders, failing in their duties both to demand the protection of property/rights of peoples (A key element of the Natural Law and embodied in the Ten Commandments) and the preservation of the very civilization that enabled Western Christianity to grow without being smothered by Islam and other threats, throw all caution to the wind. The invaders, the People are told, must be welcomed. They are only seeking a better place to live and we have no right to deny them that opportunity. Like many Evangelicals and Catholics in the US, the leaders become agents of the dismantling of the Western world that allowed Western Christianity to develop. In your own house, you can only take in so many homeless people before the tipping point is reached when your house is now a slum. God of course demands that you give to help others, but He did not give the People what they have (and was also built by centuries of hard work and good planning) just so they could then wreck the place by self-righteous over-giving. In the end, the Church itself no longer even has a purpose and what is left of it withers away.
The People are, in short, shot-out from years of rich-bashing and indoctrination in and disgust with one's own culture. They have lost the spirit of their ancestors and are in no shape to defend their lands - they acquiesce to the dismantlement.
The book was quickly given the label of "racist" by the Left, which made many non-racist Westerners too afraid to read or discuss the book openly. (My three children are of mixed Korean and European ancestry so I can won't entertain any similar accusations) The teller of the story may or may not reflect the attitude of the author, but what is clear is that the latter holds dear all that is precious about Western Civilization and is gravely concerned with the threats that face it.
With eleven million (Which is only an estimate) illegals inches away from being made citizens as thanks for their illegal acts, and others being granted asylum simply due to stating that they are afraid of the cartels* the US is also facing its own, albeit one administered more slowly but surely, version of The Camp of the Saints. The Left is rejoicing and is making it clear that they will accept nothing short of amnesty**, the People are overwhelmed with guilt, and Christians are set to give away the land to which they sailed that enabled them to live in Freedom.
If even ten percent of the new citizens vote for Conservative candidates (Which is itself unlikely) the fruit of amnesty will still be nothing more than a Socialist US, with even the US part being on the way out.
*http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/08/11/border-loophole-allows-hundreds-to-flow-from-mexico-to-u-s-if-they-say-key-words/
**http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-TV/2013/08/12/Schumer-Dems-Wont-Take-Anything-But-Citizenshi-For-Illegal-Immigrant
It is impossible to provide a synopsis that does not spoil the end, so the best that I can do is to avoid details.
A massive amount of people from a non-western country decide that they want to live in a prosperous nation. When I say massive, I mean roughly a million people; enough to swamp a medium-size nation nation, use up all of its resources, and change the demographics to the extent that the citizens - those descended from the people who had made the country great, are either politically marginalized or in time become a small minority and entirely (And violently) subjugated. The result is a region (No longer a country as the sovereignty of nations falls via a domino effect) that is little different from the place that the invading "refugees" left in the first place.
The Western world, in the span of a few days of landing and what follows afterward, no longer exists but in the propagandized version cultivated by a the elite of a future Socialist superstate.
The flood is not performed by force of arms, that would enable the military, police, and People of the invaded nation to defend their border without misgivings or fear of international outrage and criminal prosecutions in the Hague. No, this is done in the most cowardly manner possible; a crush of unarmed people who will not be stopped but affect to show that they are no threat. Recall the suggestion by one Leftist a couple of years ago that all Arabs descended from they who had had left Israel in the Arab-Israeli wars gather en masse and begin entering the State of Israel - a play taken straight out of the book. The idea is that the IDF would either never be given the order to shoot or that the soldiers themselves would refuse to fire on the invaders as the latter do not demonstrate (Despite the overt aggression of their act) any obvious intentions to act with violence. In the book, the people of the West, full of White Guilt and memories of past atrocities that are wrongfully conflated with the situation of of the invaders, can't bring themselves to defend the land and country that was bequeathed to them by their ancestors. Violence of course follows once they are ashore, but by then it is too late. The People have been cowed into submission.
In the book, Leftists, anarchists, and all other haters of the culture and society that bred them and gave them an opportunity to live is a safe and prosperous nation celebrate the imminent arrival of the invaders. They revel in the soon-to come destruction. Those who dare express their concerns are shot down and labeled as racists or fascists.
Church leaders, failing in their duties both to demand the protection of property/rights of peoples (A key element of the Natural Law and embodied in the Ten Commandments) and the preservation of the very civilization that enabled Western Christianity to grow without being smothered by Islam and other threats, throw all caution to the wind. The invaders, the People are told, must be welcomed. They are only seeking a better place to live and we have no right to deny them that opportunity. Like many Evangelicals and Catholics in the US, the leaders become agents of the dismantling of the Western world that allowed Western Christianity to develop. In your own house, you can only take in so many homeless people before the tipping point is reached when your house is now a slum. God of course demands that you give to help others, but He did not give the People what they have (and was also built by centuries of hard work and good planning) just so they could then wreck the place by self-righteous over-giving. In the end, the Church itself no longer even has a purpose and what is left of it withers away.
The People are, in short, shot-out from years of rich-bashing and indoctrination in and disgust with one's own culture. They have lost the spirit of their ancestors and are in no shape to defend their lands - they acquiesce to the dismantlement.
The book was quickly given the label of "racist" by the Left, which made many non-racist Westerners too afraid to read or discuss the book openly. (My three children are of mixed Korean and European ancestry so I can won't entertain any similar accusations) The teller of the story may or may not reflect the attitude of the author, but what is clear is that the latter holds dear all that is precious about Western Civilization and is gravely concerned with the threats that face it.
With eleven million (Which is only an estimate) illegals inches away from being made citizens as thanks for their illegal acts, and others being granted asylum simply due to stating that they are afraid of the cartels* the US is also facing its own, albeit one administered more slowly but surely, version of The Camp of the Saints. The Left is rejoicing and is making it clear that they will accept nothing short of amnesty**, the People are overwhelmed with guilt, and Christians are set to give away the land to which they sailed that enabled them to live in Freedom.
If even ten percent of the new citizens vote for Conservative candidates (Which is itself unlikely) the fruit of amnesty will still be nothing more than a Socialist US, with even the US part being on the way out.
*http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/08/11/border-loophole-allows-hundreds-to-flow-from-mexico-to-u-s-if-they-say-key-words/
**http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-TV/2013/08/12/Schumer-Dems-Wont-Take-Anything-But-Citizenshi-For-Illegal-Immigrant
Wednesday, July 2, 2014
Ron Paul and Frederic Bastiat - Whats Rights Are and What They are Not
A few months ago, I finally got around to reading The Law by Frederic Bastiat. A Frenchman living in a nation that had already succumbed to all sorts of tariffs, allowing some to sell their products at a higher than marker price and steadily moving in the direction of central planning, Bastiat called for end and to the disastrous path his country was taking. He also wrote the most clear - in my opinion even more so that John Locke, explanations on what rights actually are and the true purposes for laws that I have ever read. His scathing attacks on the turn that States have taken to turn laws from being tools for protecting rights to a means of taking away rights for the sake of whoever is making demands should be read by all.
Bastiat's birthday was yesterday, and I saved the link from The Blaze in order to use it today. By a stroke of fortune, The Blaze also had quotes from former Congressman and Presidential candidate Ron Paul today. In an interview with Dana Loesch, Congressman Paul made statements about the employer mandates for abortifacients and birth control contained in the Affordable Care Act that perfectly echo Bastiat's words.
I will include both links today.
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/07/02/ron-paul-says-if-americans-understood-this-the-hobby-lobby-contraception-case-would-likely-never-have-happened/
"Former Republican Congressman Ron Paul of Texas said Wednesday that if Americans understood the definition of “rights,” the battle over whether Hobby Lobby should have to pay for its employees’ birth control would likely never have happened.
“It’s the whole issue of the understanding of what rights are, and mandates that we shouldn’t have,” Paul said, speaking on The Glenn Beck Program with guest host Dana Loesch. “If we had that, then we wouldn’t have to go through this agony.”
On Monday, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Hobby Lobby, saying that Obamacare cannot force companies to pay for emergency contraceptive coverage that could lead to abortions if it violates their religious beliefs.
“The claim is that women have a right to free birth control,” Paul explained. “And yet they never talk about the rights of the person that has to provide these demands. But demands and desires and needs can’t become rights, and that’s why we have a society today that, anyone who needs or wants something [says], ‘We have a right to this.’ But they never say, ‘Whose rights must we violate in order to get what we want?’”
“The left never talks about that,” Paul continued. “They only talk about some individual who wants something, and they have a ‘right’ to it, and don’t even bring up the subject of whose rights are going to be violated by providing these services.”
Paul said it is “such a shame” that Americans are fighting over the topic, saying “these debates wouldn’t go on” if we “lived in a free society” and understood the “definition of ‘rights.’”......"
In his, “The Law,” Bastiat begins:
“The law perverted! And the police powers of the state perverted along with it! The law, I say, not only turned from its proper purpose but made to follow an entirely contrary purpose! The law become the weapon of every kind of greed! Instead of checking crime, the law itself guilty of the evils it is supposed to punish!
If this is true, it is a serious fact, and moral duty requires me to call the attention of my fellow-citizens to it.”
Bastiat continues:
“We hold from God the gift which includes all others. This gift is life — physical, intellectual, and moral life............
Life, faculties, production — in other words, individuality, liberty, property — this is man. And in spite of the cunning of artful political leaders, these three gifts from God precede all human legislation, and are superior to it. Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place.
What, then, is law? It is the collective organization of the individual right to lawful defense.
Each of us has a natural right — from God — to defend his person, his liberty, and his property. These are the three basic requirements of life, and the preservation of any one of them is completely dependent upon the preservation of the other two. For what are our faculties but the extension of our individuality? And what is property but an extension of our faculties? If every person has the right to defend even by force — his person, his liberty, and his property, then it follows that a group of men have the right to organize and support a common force to protect these rights constantly. Thus the principle of collective right — its reason for existing, its lawfulness — is based on individual right. And the common force that protects this collective right cannot logically have any other purpose or any other mission than that for which it acts as a substitute. Thus, since an individual cannot lawfully use force against the person, liberty, or property of another individual, then the common force — for the same reason — cannot lawfully be used to destroy the person, liberty, or property of individuals or groups.
Such a perversion of force would be, in both cases, contrary to our premise. Force has been given to us to defend our own individual rights. Who will dare to say that force has been given to us to destroy the equal rights of our brothers? Since no individual acting separately can lawfully use force to destroy the rights of others, does it not logically follow that the same principle also applies to the common force that is nothing more than the organized combination of the individual forces?
If this is true, then nothing can be more evident than this: The law is the organization of the natural right of lawful defense. It is the substitution of a common force for individual forces. And this common force is to do only what the individual forces have a natural and lawful right to do: to protect persons, liberties, and properties; to maintain the right of each, and to cause justice to reign over us all...........
“But, unfortunately, law by no means confines itself to its proper functions. And when it has exceeded its proper functions, it has not done so merely in some inconsequential and debatable matters. The law has gone further than this; it has acted in direct opposition to its own purpose. The law has been used to destroy its own objective: It has been applied to annihilating the justice that it was supposed to maintain; to limiting and destroying rights which its real purpose was to respect. The law has placed the collective force at the disposal of the unscrupulous who wish, without risk, to exploit the person, liberty, and property of others. It has converted plunder into a right, in order to protect plunder. And it has converted lawful defense into a crime, in order to punish lawful defense.
How has this perversion of the law been accomplished? And what have been the results?
The law has been perverted by the influence of two entirely different causes: stupid greed and false philanthropy............."
Bastiat's birthday was yesterday, and I saved the link from The Blaze in order to use it today. By a stroke of fortune, The Blaze also had quotes from former Congressman and Presidential candidate Ron Paul today. In an interview with Dana Loesch, Congressman Paul made statements about the employer mandates for abortifacients and birth control contained in the Affordable Care Act that perfectly echo Bastiat's words.
I will include both links today.
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/07/02/ron-paul-says-if-americans-understood-this-the-hobby-lobby-contraception-case-would-likely-never-have-happened/
"Former Republican Congressman Ron Paul of Texas said Wednesday that if Americans understood the definition of “rights,” the battle over whether Hobby Lobby should have to pay for its employees’ birth control would likely never have happened.
“It’s the whole issue of the understanding of what rights are, and mandates that we shouldn’t have,” Paul said, speaking on The Glenn Beck Program with guest host Dana Loesch. “If we had that, then we wouldn’t have to go through this agony.”
On Monday, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Hobby Lobby, saying that Obamacare cannot force companies to pay for emergency contraceptive coverage that could lead to abortions if it violates their religious beliefs.
“The claim is that women have a right to free birth control,” Paul explained. “And yet they never talk about the rights of the person that has to provide these demands. But demands and desires and needs can’t become rights, and that’s why we have a society today that, anyone who needs or wants something [says], ‘We have a right to this.’ But they never say, ‘Whose rights must we violate in order to get what we want?’”
“The left never talks about that,” Paul continued. “They only talk about some individual who wants something, and they have a ‘right’ to it, and don’t even bring up the subject of whose rights are going to be violated by providing these services.”
Paul said it is “such a shame” that Americans are fighting over the topic, saying “these debates wouldn’t go on” if we “lived in a free society” and understood the “definition of ‘rights.’”......"
------------------------------------------------------
".........Bastiat, who was born some 213 years ago in Bayonne, France, wrote perhaps most eloquently with respect to liberty and the law, expressing positions that are as meaningful and relevant today as when they were first written.
In his, “The Law,” Bastiat begins:
“The law perverted! And the police powers of the state perverted along with it! The law, I say, not only turned from its proper purpose but made to follow an entirely contrary purpose! The law become the weapon of every kind of greed! Instead of checking crime, the law itself guilty of the evils it is supposed to punish!
If this is true, it is a serious fact, and moral duty requires me to call the attention of my fellow-citizens to it.”
Bastiat continues:
“We hold from God the gift which includes all others. This gift is life — physical, intellectual, and moral life............
Life, faculties, production — in other words, individuality, liberty, property — this is man. And in spite of the cunning of artful political leaders, these three gifts from God precede all human legislation, and are superior to it. Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place.
What, then, is law? It is the collective organization of the individual right to lawful defense.
Each of us has a natural right — from God — to defend his person, his liberty, and his property. These are the three basic requirements of life, and the preservation of any one of them is completely dependent upon the preservation of the other two. For what are our faculties but the extension of our individuality? And what is property but an extension of our faculties? If every person has the right to defend even by force — his person, his liberty, and his property, then it follows that a group of men have the right to organize and support a common force to protect these rights constantly. Thus the principle of collective right — its reason for existing, its lawfulness — is based on individual right. And the common force that protects this collective right cannot logically have any other purpose or any other mission than that for which it acts as a substitute. Thus, since an individual cannot lawfully use force against the person, liberty, or property of another individual, then the common force — for the same reason — cannot lawfully be used to destroy the person, liberty, or property of individuals or groups.
Such a perversion of force would be, in both cases, contrary to our premise. Force has been given to us to defend our own individual rights. Who will dare to say that force has been given to us to destroy the equal rights of our brothers? Since no individual acting separately can lawfully use force to destroy the rights of others, does it not logically follow that the same principle also applies to the common force that is nothing more than the organized combination of the individual forces?
If this is true, then nothing can be more evident than this: The law is the organization of the natural right of lawful defense. It is the substitution of a common force for individual forces. And this common force is to do only what the individual forces have a natural and lawful right to do: to protect persons, liberties, and properties; to maintain the right of each, and to cause justice to reign over us all...........
“But, unfortunately, law by no means confines itself to its proper functions. And when it has exceeded its proper functions, it has not done so merely in some inconsequential and debatable matters. The law has gone further than this; it has acted in direct opposition to its own purpose. The law has been used to destroy its own objective: It has been applied to annihilating the justice that it was supposed to maintain; to limiting and destroying rights which its real purpose was to respect. The law has placed the collective force at the disposal of the unscrupulous who wish, without risk, to exploit the person, liberty, and property of others. It has converted plunder into a right, in order to protect plunder. And it has converted lawful defense into a crime, in order to punish lawful defense.
How has this perversion of the law been accomplished? And what have been the results?
The law has been perverted by the influence of two entirely different causes: stupid greed and false philanthropy............."
Tuesday, July 1, 2014
NYC Mayor de Blasio - Obama Has Every Right to Go Around Congress on Illegal Immigration
The computer is still not helping, so no links will be included here.
The quoted text is from the New York daily News Blog and is dated July 1, 2014.
The language used by NYC Marxist Mayor Bill de BlaSIo is standard tactics for Western Leftists - take the position that you want (which is everything on any one issue - no compromise) , accuse any opponents of being the enemy, wanting people to suffer, doing nothing, or failing to reach "common ground", and then assert that Leftists have - not only "the right", but the obligation, to "fix" things, which means to do what they want.
The People have been lead to believe that no actual rights nor laws have any meaning whatsoever and that we are beholden to statists who (in this case) will do their all to import as many new voters for the Marxist-driven Democratic Party of the US. We are fast approaching an era in which those who live, feel, and think as Americans will have zero political power at the ballot box in national elections.
"Mayor de Blasio voiced strong support for President Obama’s go-it-alone effort on immigration reform Tuesday, calling current policy “absolutely ridiculous” and saying the president has “every right” to go around Congress...........
“The president doesn't have a lot of choice here. I think he's tried for years to find common ground with the Republican House members and to address something that obviously has to be responded to in this country,” de Blasio said.
The mayor, who plans to issue municipal ID cards to undocumented immigrants in the city, expressed outrage at the country’s current policies.
The quoted text is from the New York daily News Blog and is dated July 1, 2014.
The language used by NYC Marxist Mayor Bill de BlaSIo is standard tactics for Western Leftists - take the position that you want (which is everything on any one issue - no compromise) , accuse any opponents of being the enemy, wanting people to suffer, doing nothing, or failing to reach "common ground", and then assert that Leftists have - not only "the right", but the obligation, to "fix" things, which means to do what they want.
The People have been lead to believe that no actual rights nor laws have any meaning whatsoever and that we are beholden to statists who (in this case) will do their all to import as many new voters for the Marxist-driven Democratic Party of the US. We are fast approaching an era in which those who live, feel, and think as Americans will have zero political power at the ballot box in national elections.
"Mayor de Blasio voiced strong support for President Obama’s go-it-alone effort on immigration reform Tuesday, calling current policy “absolutely ridiculous” and saying the president has “every right” to go around Congress...........
“The president doesn't have a lot of choice here. I think he's tried for years to find common ground with the Republican House members and to address something that obviously has to be responded to in this country,” de Blasio said.
The mayor, who plans to issue municipal ID cards to undocumented immigrants in the city, expressed outrage at the country’s current policies.
[-More leftist drivel - anything that makes sense (in this case, protecting out sovereignty and national identity) is ridiculous. Any consequences of wrongful acts are either not fair and unjust. Anything that threatens their agenda is not sustainable or (their preferred term, unsustainable) ]
“It's absolutely ridiculous, and it's not sustainable, and it's not fair. And the human costs are very real. A lot of injustice occurs to these people. They're our fellow human beings, and it's unfair,” he said.
He said the president’s end-run around Congress was appropriate as a last resort.
“If Congres is uninterested in acting on crucial national issues and on issues that have fundamental impact on our future, then the president has every right to act in every way he can,” he said.
“It's absolutely ridiculous, and it's not sustainable, and it's not fair. And the human costs are very real. A lot of injustice occurs to these people. They're our fellow human beings, and it's unfair,” he said.
He said the president’s end-run around Congress was appropriate as a last resort.
“If Congres is uninterested in acting on crucial national issues and on issues that have fundamental impact on our future, then the president has every right to act in every way he can,” he said.
Monday, June 30, 2014
Leftist/Rabid Feminist Howling Over SC Hobby Lobby Decision
The computer is back to acting up, so no links will appear in this post.
Hobby Lobby, a retailer that is owned entirely by devout Christians, will not have to pay for abortifacients for their employees. That portion of the insanely deceptively named Affordable Care Act/Obamacare was struck down in regards to employers in similar situations. I assume that other employers, such as the Catholic Church, will also benefit from this decision.
The US Supreme Court (SCOTUS) made a move that has unfortunately become an increasingly rare occurrence - it ruled correctly on a case concerning an issue that had everything to do with Liberty, Conscience, and Religious Freedom. Although again reminding us that the bulwark between right and wrong is tearing at the seams - the split decision was a razor-thin 5-4 margin, on this occasion the Court clearly got it right.
Pregnancy has come to mean only when a fertilized egg is impregnated in the uterine wall - an extremely narrow definition willfully concocted to render all other pregnancies non-starters and thus not worthy of any consideration by the law. This of course leaves the medical community in a "painted themselves into a corner" position as even a fertilized egg that has become implanted in the Fallopian tubes is referred to as an Ectopic Pregnancy. As pregnancy does occur prior to implantation in the uterus, Ru-486 is therefore an abortifacient despite the Herculean efforts that the Left expends to claim that it is not.
Dana Loesch in a piece in The Blaze dated June 30, 2014, noted the massive degree of irony in the "wanting it both ways" claims made by rabid feminists and their Leftist allies:
".....Here are some of the slogans Loesch proposed:
“Not my boss’s business — but I want my boss to pay for it!”
“Hands off my uterus — just give it your dollars instead.”
“Women united will never be defeated (so pay for our birth control).”
“Not the church, not the state, women must control our fate (please finance our fate).”
Loesch said women’s access to contraceptives is no more restricted than it was before the ruling. All that has changed is that employers are no longer forced to pay for the contraceptives of others in violation of their religious liberties, she said......"
Hobby Lobby, a retailer that is owned entirely by devout Christians, will not have to pay for abortifacients for their employees. That portion of the insanely deceptively named Affordable Care Act/Obamacare was struck down in regards to employers in similar situations. I assume that other employers, such as the Catholic Church, will also benefit from this decision.
The US Supreme Court (SCOTUS) made a move that has unfortunately become an increasingly rare occurrence - it ruled correctly on a case concerning an issue that had everything to do with Liberty, Conscience, and Religious Freedom. Although again reminding us that the bulwark between right and wrong is tearing at the seams - the split decision was a razor-thin 5-4 margin, on this occasion the Court clearly got it right.
Pregnancy has come to mean only when a fertilized egg is impregnated in the uterine wall - an extremely narrow definition willfully concocted to render all other pregnancies non-starters and thus not worthy of any consideration by the law. This of course leaves the medical community in a "painted themselves into a corner" position as even a fertilized egg that has become implanted in the Fallopian tubes is referred to as an Ectopic Pregnancy. As pregnancy does occur prior to implantation in the uterus, Ru-486 is therefore an abortifacient despite the Herculean efforts that the Left expends to claim that it is not.
Dana Loesch in a piece in The Blaze dated June 30, 2014, noted the massive degree of irony in the "wanting it both ways" claims made by rabid feminists and their Leftist allies:
".....Here are some of the slogans Loesch proposed:
“Not my boss’s business — but I want my boss to pay for it!”
“Hands off my uterus — just give it your dollars instead.”
“Women united will never be defeated (so pay for our birth control).”
“Not the church, not the state, women must control our fate (please finance our fate).”
Loesch said women’s access to contraceptives is no more restricted than it was before the ruling. All that has changed is that employers are no longer forced to pay for the contraceptives of others in violation of their religious liberties, she said......"
"Women's rights remain unchanged. They were able to obtain birth control before and after ruling."
".......In a 5-4 opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito the court held that as applied to closely held corporations the Health and Human Services regulations imposing the contraceptive mandate violate the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Alito was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Antonin Scalia and Justice Clarence Thomas. Justice Anthony Kennedy filed a concurring opinion.
The decision is a victory for the Green family that owns the Hobby Lobby arts and crafts chain and the Hahns who own Conestoga, a cabinet making company, who had challenged the so called contraceptive mandate saying it forced them to either violate their faith or pay ruinous fines. The government defended the provision as an essential part of health care coverage for women.............
The court rejected the government’s claim that neither the owners nor the corporations could bring a religious liberty claim. “Protecting the free-exercise rights of corporations like Hobby Lobby, Conestoga … protects the religious liberty of the humans who own and control those companies,” Alito wrote.
Alito says the court has “little trouble” concluding that the HHS contraceptive mandate substantially burdens the exercise of region: "The Hahns and the Greens believe that providing the coverage demanded by the HHS regulation is connected to the destruction of an embryo in a way that is sufficient to make it immoral for them to provide the coverage.”
“The Government has failed to show that the contraceptive mandate is the least restrict means of furthering that interest," according to the majority opinion.
Alito wrote that the owners of Hobby Lobby believe that the coverage required of the health care law "is connected to the destruction of an embryo in a way that is sufficient to make it immoral for them to provide the coverage … HHS [Department of Health and Human Services] has not shown that it lacks other means of achieving its desired goal without imposing a substantial burden on the exercise of religion by the objecting parties in these cases.”
"Protecting the free-exercise rights of corporations like Hobby Lobby, Conestoga and Mardel protects the religious liberty of the humans who own and control those FRFR companies,” Alito wrote in the majority opinion.
Alito said the opinion was limited to closely held corporations: “Our decision should not be understood to hold that an insurance coverage mandate must necessarily fall if it conflicts with an employer’s religious beliefs. Other coverage requirements, such as immunizations, may be supported by different interests (for example, the need to combat the spread of infectious diseases) and may involve different arguments about the least restrictive means of providing them. “
[Here comes the voice of those who will not brook any exercise of conscience in the face of State Power whatsoever]
"Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote a dissent, joined on the merits by Justice Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Steven Breyer.
In her dissent Ginsburg –disagreed with Alito --and worried about what other challenges might come next. :”Reading the Act expansively, as the court does, raises a host of “Me, too” questions. Can an employer in business for profit opt out of coverage for blood transfusions, vaccinations, antidepressants, or medications derived from pigs, based on the employer’s sincerely held religious beliefs opposing those medical practices.”
Ginsburg wrote , “The exemption sought by Hobby Lobby and Conestoga would override significant interests of the corporations’ employees and covered dependents. It would deny legions of women who do not hold their employers’ beliefs access to contraceptive coverage that the ACA would otherwise secure”
She took the unusual step of reading her dissent from the bench.
White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest: "President Obama believes that people should make personal health care decisions for themselves rather than their bosses deciding for them. Today’s decision jeopardizes the health of women who are employed by these companies. As Millions of women know firsthand, contraception is often vital to their health and well-being. That is why the Affordable Care Act ensures that women have access to contraceptive care, along with other preventative care, like vaccines and cancer screenings. We will work with Congress to make sure that any women effected by this decision will still have the same coverage and vital health services as everyone else."
DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz: "I am disappointed and deeply concerned by the Supreme Court’s decision today in the case of Burwell v. Hobby Lobby. Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, millions of Americans have gained access to preventive services without out-of-pocket costs, including birth control. However, this decision takes money out of the pockets of women and their families and allows for-profit employers to deny access to certain health care benefits based on their personal beliefs. Nearly sixty percent of women who use birth control do so for more than just family planning."
-From ABC News article dated June 30, 2014:
The decision is a victory for the Green family that owns the Hobby Lobby arts and crafts chain and the Hahns who own Conestoga, a cabinet making company, who had challenged the so called contraceptive mandate saying it forced them to either violate their faith or pay ruinous fines. The government defended the provision as an essential part of health care coverage for women.............
The court rejected the government’s claim that neither the owners nor the corporations could bring a religious liberty claim. “Protecting the free-exercise rights of corporations like Hobby Lobby, Conestoga … protects the religious liberty of the humans who own and control those companies,” Alito wrote.
Alito says the court has “little trouble” concluding that the HHS contraceptive mandate substantially burdens the exercise of region: "The Hahns and the Greens believe that providing the coverage demanded by the HHS regulation is connected to the destruction of an embryo in a way that is sufficient to make it immoral for them to provide the coverage.”
“The Government has failed to show that the contraceptive mandate is the least restrict means of furthering that interest," according to the majority opinion.
Alito wrote that the owners of Hobby Lobby believe that the coverage required of the health care law "is connected to the destruction of an embryo in a way that is sufficient to make it immoral for them to provide the coverage … HHS [Department of Health and Human Services] has not shown that it lacks other means of achieving its desired goal without imposing a substantial burden on the exercise of religion by the objecting parties in these cases.”
"Protecting the free-exercise rights of corporations like Hobby Lobby, Conestoga and Mardel protects the religious liberty of the humans who own and control those FRFR companies,” Alito wrote in the majority opinion.
Alito said the opinion was limited to closely held corporations: “Our decision should not be understood to hold that an insurance coverage mandate must necessarily fall if it conflicts with an employer’s religious beliefs. Other coverage requirements, such as immunizations, may be supported by different interests (for example, the need to combat the spread of infectious diseases) and may involve different arguments about the least restrictive means of providing them. “
[Here comes the voice of those who will not brook any exercise of conscience in the face of State Power whatsoever]
"Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote a dissent, joined on the merits by Justice Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Steven Breyer.
In her dissent Ginsburg –disagreed with Alito --and worried about what other challenges might come next. :”Reading the Act expansively, as the court does, raises a host of “Me, too” questions. Can an employer in business for profit opt out of coverage for blood transfusions, vaccinations, antidepressants, or medications derived from pigs, based on the employer’s sincerely held religious beliefs opposing those medical practices.”
Ginsburg wrote , “The exemption sought by Hobby Lobby and Conestoga would override significant interests of the corporations’ employees and covered dependents. It would deny legions of women who do not hold their employers’ beliefs access to contraceptive coverage that the ACA would otherwise secure”
She took the unusual step of reading her dissent from the bench.
White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest: "President Obama believes that people should make personal health care decisions for themselves rather than their bosses deciding for them. Today’s decision jeopardizes the health of women who are employed by these companies. As Millions of women know firsthand, contraception is often vital to their health and well-being. That is why the Affordable Care Act ensures that women have access to contraceptive care, along with other preventative care, like vaccines and cancer screenings. We will work with Congress to make sure that any women effected by this decision will still have the same coverage and vital health services as everyone else."
DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz: "I am disappointed and deeply concerned by the Supreme Court’s decision today in the case of Burwell v. Hobby Lobby. Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, millions of Americans have gained access to preventive services without out-of-pocket costs, including birth control. However, this decision takes money out of the pockets of women and their families and allows for-profit employers to deny access to certain health care benefits based on their personal beliefs. Nearly sixty percent of women who use birth control do so for more than just family planning."
Sunday, June 29, 2014
Will Russia React to the Islamization and Leftist Centralization of Western Europe?
-Hat tip to Gates of Vienna
In previous posts* (at bottom), I envisioned a scenario in which Western Civilization has declined to a point in which those who live in Western nations live and think in a manner that is little different from peoples of East Asian nations. In the second and third of the three-part series, I suggested that Russia (and possibly to a lesser extent other East European nations) finally bring their potential to fruition and by doing so possibly salvage some of what is left of Western culture.
This post from Gates of Vienna has a somewhat similar approach, but the writer's scenario is not simply a West (in his case, that of Europe) that has declined, but one in which the EU, by successful importation of hordes of Muslims and the fettering (both physically and psychologically) of the descendants of those who brought the greatest degree of freedom, prosperity, and achievement the world has ever seen, has become a full-blown belligerent to an Eastern Europe that will not do the bidding of the Western Socialists.
Some very good points were brought up in the post. In the above scenario, the US will likely have become fully under the political and societal domination of the Left and will consequently applaud Western European efforts to start trouble. The main problem that I see with Russia at the moment is her terribly low birthrate. Perhaps more Boers and other cast-offs will take the Russians (Georgians, interestingly, are offering the same) up on their to settle in or near the lands from which Indo-European speakers originally spread (I strongly favor the North of the Black Sea school for an original IE heartland).
http://gatesofvienna.net/2014/06/islamisation-of-europe-when-will-russia-react/#comment-362314
"Islamisation of Europe: When will Russia React?
For how much longer will Russia stand and watch while Western Europe is transformed into an Islamic dominated, nuclear-armed, EU-totalitarian entity? Since Russia is not governed by dreamy ideologues, but by political realists, one may assume that the Kremlin is coming to terms with the consequences for Russian external security of the Islamisation and ‘totalitarianisation’ of EU-West Europe. Russian strategists may be looking at the following themes in particular.
(By C. Jahn)
23 June 2014
1. The Islamisation of EU-West Europe threatens Russia
In spite of the growing opposition movements in some Western European countries such as France and England, it is to be expected that the present Islamisation policy of the Western European governments will remain unchanged. In the future, too, they will bring millions of Mohammedans to Europe, who for their part will continue their “conquest from the within” and step by step will secure for themselves a growing power and influence over policy, administration and the security forces. Particularly in Germany, with its feeble opposition, the government is advancing Islamisation with a singular aggressiveness. Even if it takes three or four decades for the Mohammedan minority to become the majority in important West European heartlands — in Belgium, Holland, large parts of France, England, Germany and Austria — the Islamic influence on the political leadership in Western Europe will have already become so strong in the short term, that Russia and the former Eastern bloc will represent the sole remaining bulwarks against the proliferation of Sharia in Europe and against the spread of the traditionally aggressive, Islamic ideology of world conquest.
An Islamised Western Europe will perforce fall into a cultural-ideological confrontation with Russia together with the rather nationalist-oriented, and in the medium term, the scarcely Islamisable states of the former East block, especially Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic. It is to be feared on this account that it will be mainly Germany, being without an opposition but strongly under the influence of Islam, that will agitate against Christian Russia, but also against other countries of the former Eastern block. Merkel’s most recent tirade against Russia and the blatant hostility of the German government toward Hungary may already anticipate this future agitation and renewed front-line positioning in Europe.
Consequently in the coming decades an Islamised EU-West Europe, because of the war-readiness and battle-preparedness intrinsic to Islam, will then become militarily more offensive in its thinking and become a confrontational and potentially hostile sphere of influence to the west of Russia. This antagonistic power base in the West will constitute a geographical supplement to the hostile Islamic sphere of influence which already exists today to the south (Chechnya, Turkic states etc.). Since an EU membership is foreseeable for the recently re-Islamised and ever dangerous, nationalistic Turkey, Russia, in the not too distant future will find herself both in the west and in the south, completely trapped in a pincer movement by predominantly Islamic powers which are latently or openly hostile.
2. The EU will accelerate on its totalitarian course
The anti-democratic development of the EU will intensify in the coming years; the totalitarian trend inside the power apparatus of the EU will gain momentum. Almost all leading parties in Western Europe support a policy favouring a still more concentrated EU centralism, accompanied by democratically elected state parliaments surrendering their powers. This trend, comparable to the development of the conglomerate of states of the USSR, will ultimately result in a dictatorship of unelected bureaucrats whose power is no longer democratically legitimised at all, or only marginally so, and whose exercise of power, by analogy with the USSR, will take on absolutist features.
Since today it is already largely impossible for the Western European population to control the power of the EU leaders, this anti-democratic development of the EU, as the historical experience of all totalitarian systems has shown, will enhance the willingness inside the EU leadership circle to take political and military risks; or to state it more concretely, the threshold for military adventures will become lower, hence making the EU considerably more dangerous. The combination of these two great political trends in Western Europe, Islamisation and ‘totalitarianisation’, will form in the medium term a dangerous cocktail for the external security of Russia.
3. The EU will obtain access to armed forces and weapons
For years efforts have been underway in the EU, by means of the centralisation of national armies, to provide the Brussels bureaucrats with their own military apparatus. There is no doubt that the raising of such an EU army is only a question of time. This army will be small in the beginning; but as the overall development of the EU has always shown, it will over time fully replace the national armies. French atomic weapons will then no longer remain under the control of a democratic government, but will become directly or indirectly subject to an undemocratic, centralised bureaucracy, which will not have to justify its measures to constituents.
Consolidation of the as yet nationally fragmented military forces in Western Europe into a gigantic, combined military apparatus will represent therefore not only a completely new calibre of military potential on Russia’s western flank, but will also fundamentally change the decision-making procedures behind the unleashing of a military confrontation: — a few totalitarian leaders making rapid decisions, hence replacing elected democrats labouriously building a consensus. Both developments will lower the Western European political leadership’s threshold and raise their readiness for confrontation..........
In the coming years Western Europe will almost inevitably become poorer and more violent; and given the foreseeable ethno-territorial fragmentation, large areas will become ungovernable. Historical experience teaches that politicians in such situations, simply for reasons of self-protection, consistently yield to the temptation of externalising the internally fermenting potential for conflict by focussing on an alleged common “enemy”. Russia therefore is at risk of becoming the lightening rod for Western Europe’s economic downfall and for its growing inter-ethnic tensions.
5. When will Russia act?
In previous posts* (at bottom), I envisioned a scenario in which Western Civilization has declined to a point in which those who live in Western nations live and think in a manner that is little different from peoples of East Asian nations. In the second and third of the three-part series, I suggested that Russia (and possibly to a lesser extent other East European nations) finally bring their potential to fruition and by doing so possibly salvage some of what is left of Western culture.
This post from Gates of Vienna has a somewhat similar approach, but the writer's scenario is not simply a West (in his case, that of Europe) that has declined, but one in which the EU, by successful importation of hordes of Muslims and the fettering (both physically and psychologically) of the descendants of those who brought the greatest degree of freedom, prosperity, and achievement the world has ever seen, has become a full-blown belligerent to an Eastern Europe that will not do the bidding of the Western Socialists.
Some very good points were brought up in the post. In the above scenario, the US will likely have become fully under the political and societal domination of the Left and will consequently applaud Western European efforts to start trouble. The main problem that I see with Russia at the moment is her terribly low birthrate. Perhaps more Boers and other cast-offs will take the Russians (Georgians, interestingly, are offering the same) up on their to settle in or near the lands from which Indo-European speakers originally spread (I strongly favor the North of the Black Sea school for an original IE heartland).
http://gatesofvienna.net/2014/06/islamisation-of-europe-when-will-russia-react/#comment-362314
"Islamisation of Europe: When will Russia React?
For how much longer will Russia stand and watch while Western Europe is transformed into an Islamic dominated, nuclear-armed, EU-totalitarian entity? Since Russia is not governed by dreamy ideologues, but by political realists, one may assume that the Kremlin is coming to terms with the consequences for Russian external security of the Islamisation and ‘totalitarianisation’ of EU-West Europe. Russian strategists may be looking at the following themes in particular.
(By C. Jahn)
23 June 2014
1. The Islamisation of EU-West Europe threatens Russia
In spite of the growing opposition movements in some Western European countries such as France and England, it is to be expected that the present Islamisation policy of the Western European governments will remain unchanged. In the future, too, they will bring millions of Mohammedans to Europe, who for their part will continue their “conquest from the within” and step by step will secure for themselves a growing power and influence over policy, administration and the security forces. Particularly in Germany, with its feeble opposition, the government is advancing Islamisation with a singular aggressiveness. Even if it takes three or four decades for the Mohammedan minority to become the majority in important West European heartlands — in Belgium, Holland, large parts of France, England, Germany and Austria — the Islamic influence on the political leadership in Western Europe will have already become so strong in the short term, that Russia and the former Eastern bloc will represent the sole remaining bulwarks against the proliferation of Sharia in Europe and against the spread of the traditionally aggressive, Islamic ideology of world conquest.
An Islamised Western Europe will perforce fall into a cultural-ideological confrontation with Russia together with the rather nationalist-oriented, and in the medium term, the scarcely Islamisable states of the former East block, especially Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic. It is to be feared on this account that it will be mainly Germany, being without an opposition but strongly under the influence of Islam, that will agitate against Christian Russia, but also against other countries of the former Eastern block. Merkel’s most recent tirade against Russia and the blatant hostility of the German government toward Hungary may already anticipate this future agitation and renewed front-line positioning in Europe.
Consequently in the coming decades an Islamised EU-West Europe, because of the war-readiness and battle-preparedness intrinsic to Islam, will then become militarily more offensive in its thinking and become a confrontational and potentially hostile sphere of influence to the west of Russia. This antagonistic power base in the West will constitute a geographical supplement to the hostile Islamic sphere of influence which already exists today to the south (Chechnya, Turkic states etc.). Since an EU membership is foreseeable for the recently re-Islamised and ever dangerous, nationalistic Turkey, Russia, in the not too distant future will find herself both in the west and in the south, completely trapped in a pincer movement by predominantly Islamic powers which are latently or openly hostile.
2. The EU will accelerate on its totalitarian course
The anti-democratic development of the EU will intensify in the coming years; the totalitarian trend inside the power apparatus of the EU will gain momentum. Almost all leading parties in Western Europe support a policy favouring a still more concentrated EU centralism, accompanied by democratically elected state parliaments surrendering their powers. This trend, comparable to the development of the conglomerate of states of the USSR, will ultimately result in a dictatorship of unelected bureaucrats whose power is no longer democratically legitimised at all, or only marginally so, and whose exercise of power, by analogy with the USSR, will take on absolutist features.
Since today it is already largely impossible for the Western European population to control the power of the EU leaders, this anti-democratic development of the EU, as the historical experience of all totalitarian systems has shown, will enhance the willingness inside the EU leadership circle to take political and military risks; or to state it more concretely, the threshold for military adventures will become lower, hence making the EU considerably more dangerous. The combination of these two great political trends in Western Europe, Islamisation and ‘totalitarianisation’, will form in the medium term a dangerous cocktail for the external security of Russia.
3. The EU will obtain access to armed forces and weapons
For years efforts have been underway in the EU, by means of the centralisation of national armies, to provide the Brussels bureaucrats with their own military apparatus. There is no doubt that the raising of such an EU army is only a question of time. This army will be small in the beginning; but as the overall development of the EU has always shown, it will over time fully replace the national armies. French atomic weapons will then no longer remain under the control of a democratic government, but will become directly or indirectly subject to an undemocratic, centralised bureaucracy, which will not have to justify its measures to constituents.
Consolidation of the as yet nationally fragmented military forces in Western Europe into a gigantic, combined military apparatus will represent therefore not only a completely new calibre of military potential on Russia’s western flank, but will also fundamentally change the decision-making procedures behind the unleashing of a military confrontation: — a few totalitarian leaders making rapid decisions, hence replacing elected democrats labouriously building a consensus. Both developments will lower the Western European political leadership’s threshold and raise their readiness for confrontation..........
In the coming years Western Europe will almost inevitably become poorer and more violent; and given the foreseeable ethno-territorial fragmentation, large areas will become ungovernable. Historical experience teaches that politicians in such situations, simply for reasons of self-protection, consistently yield to the temptation of externalising the internally fermenting potential for conflict by focussing on an alleged common “enemy”. Russia therefore is at risk of becoming the lightening rod for Western Europe’s economic downfall and for its growing inter-ethnic tensions.
5. When will Russia act?
......................Since only Russia comes into question as an adversary in such a war — an Islamised Western Europe will not make war against the Arab world; and democratic Switzerland, which is being observed with growing hostility by the EU elites, constitutes no serious adversary — the question arises as to how long Russia will continue to watch this development and do nothing. From the Russian standpoint — and the Western European politicians should try to understand this standpoint — a Russian intervention into the current political and ethnic trends in Western Europe would not at all constitute “interference in the internal affairs” of EU-West Europe; rather, given the long-term geopolitical and military danger associated with these developments, it would lie directly within the immediate security interests of Russia.
http://thehotgates480bc.blogspot.com/2013/06/if-west-falls-what-then.html
*http://thehotgates480bc.blogspot.com/2013/06/western-decline-will-third-rome-take.html
*http://thehotgates480bc.blogspot.com/2013/06/western-decline-will-third-rome-take_5.html
http://thehotgates480bc.blogspot.com/2013/06/if-west-falls-what-then.html
*http://thehotgates480bc.blogspot.com/2013/06/western-decline-will-third-rome-take.html
Western Decline - Will The Third Rome Take the Torch? - Part 1
When I treat the topic of the decline of Western Culture and Civilization*, I hope to avoid being labeled as a fatalist. I have noted in many previous posts that Western people are not finished and that they still have a window in which they can return to that which made them great. That window is closing quickly though, and I want to present some possible outcomes in the event that our downward spiral is not soon arrested.
If the West reaches a point in which it is no longer recognizable, I think that Russia may be the state that takes its place. China and India of course will be quite powerful and that is fine, but my thoughts are on a place in which at least some of the elements of Western Culture can be married to a related Culture.
[Added 6/5/13- I realized that I failed to note that the above supposes not only that the decline in the West is not stopped, but also that no move was made by Western peoples to leave most of the lost nations, coalesce in a nation that has a higher chance of being saved, and establish a reformed and restored Western Culture.]
http://thehotgates480bc.blogspot.com/2013/06/if-west-falls-what-then.html
Note that in the following historical notes I am generalizing very much.
The Slavic peoples were late in coming on the world stage. Like the ancient Gauls and other Celts, they did not have a sense of unity as a people or ethnic/cultural group. The Eastward movements of the Ostrogoths under Ermanaric, followed by the Westward movements of the Huns, Avars, and Magyars, were the first events that had the effect of subjugating many of the tribes and keeping them from coalescing and growing in strength. The post-classical slave trade concentrated so much on them that the word for a slave - a cognate of Slav, made it way into several languages. Other invaders would follow; early Bulgars (A remnant Hunnic dynasty later to become fully Slav), Turkic tribes such as the Patiznaks, Khazars, and Cumans, and the longest-lived dynasties from the East - the Mongols.The Ukraine born much of the brunt of the Turkic invasions - their land was too attractive to horse and pastoral peoples who needed grazing lands and it was situated in a major avenue of approach for such peoples.
In the Medieval period, the Empire of Great Moravia was killed in its infancy by the Magyars, whose aggressions were diverted by the German king, anxious to both eliminate a rival and to prevet the terrorizing pf his dominions. This move proved to be foolish as the invaders soon moved on to Central Europe and as far and France and Italy.
Russia first came into being as an organized state under the rule of the Varangians, name for the Northmen (Mostly Swedes)that moved Eastward from their domains. My understanding is that the word Russia comes from the Finnish word Rus, which meant a rower, an attestation to their use of longships both on sea and in the great rivers such as the Volga. Like other European states, Russia underwent periods of unity and disunity in which principalities become independent. While Slavs that border Western Empire adopted, Catholicism, the Russians and other Slavs embraced Orthodox Christianity. This was to have a powerful effect on the development of the Slavic nations; they identified spiritually, culturally and politically with the Byzantine Empire. When Constantinople (The second Rome)later fell to the Ottomans, many in Russia were to see the Principality of Muscovy (It became the strongest Russian state) as being the heir of the Roman tradition and authority.
The Mongol invasions were to have the greatest effect of the Russian and other Slavic regions. Their cruelty was of a particularly savage nature and was applied in a wholesale manner to the peoples that resisted their domination. The Mongols lived off the tribute of the conquered peoples and vassal states of khanates. They ruled much of Russia and kept other principalities as tributary states from the early 13th century and were not finally ejected under Ivan The Terrible (meaning powerful or awesome).
With the many centuries of a frontier-state status, the people were never able to engage in acts of progress such as that which occurred in Western Europe. The nobility were set in their ways and the culture was a bit of a mix of Slavic, Byzantine, European, and Mongol. Peter the Great (Sometimes viciously) attempted a 17th-18th century version of a Great Leap Forward, but as a middle class as strong as that of Western Europe had not yet developed in Russia, the economy did not have the ability to take off and grow on its own - it had been too centralized and directed right from the top.
This pattern did not change much until the collapse of the governments and the rule of the Bolsheviks. What decentralization and middle class growth had occurred was lost in the stagnation of a Marxist state. Seizures of lands, terrifying purges, forced collectivizations, attacks on the culture and religion, and purposely-created famines (The Ukraine again bears the brunt), and the creation of a full-blown totalitarian police-state were to send this region into a backwards state that would last until the late 80's - early 90's. The horrific invasion by Hitler's Germany not only killed many more millions, it caused immeasurable damage to the industrially and agricultural infrastructure, thus undoing even what projects the Communists had attempted. It also made Russia yet again a frontier state with all that follows such a condition - only this time the threat came from Western Europe.
I will do Part 2 tomorrow-
* I prefer to differentiate between "Culture" and "Civilization" in the manner of German writers. To explain this approach as shortly (And probably as poorly) as possible, a society reaches the point of civilization when a culture has effectively given its all. The people in general have lost their virtue, desire to grow, intellectual and marshal vigor, and creative (Particularly in art and music) capacity. The shell of the Culture is maintained as a sort of a facade, and the people congregate in urban areas, where they start to become enervated - concentrating more on personal advancement and conspicuous consumption rather than living in and improving the Culture that was bequeathed to them.
If the West reaches a point in which it is no longer recognizable, I think that Russia may be the state that takes its place. China and India of course will be quite powerful and that is fine, but my thoughts are on a place in which at least some of the elements of Western Culture can be married to a related Culture.
[Added 6/5/13- I realized that I failed to note that the above supposes not only that the decline in the West is not stopped, but also that no move was made by Western peoples to leave most of the lost nations, coalesce in a nation that has a higher chance of being saved, and establish a reformed and restored Western Culture.]
http://thehotgates480bc.blogspot.com/2013/06/if-west-falls-what-then.html
Note that in the following historical notes I am generalizing very much.
The Slavic peoples were late in coming on the world stage. Like the ancient Gauls and other Celts, they did not have a sense of unity as a people or ethnic/cultural group. The Eastward movements of the Ostrogoths under Ermanaric, followed by the Westward movements of the Huns, Avars, and Magyars, were the first events that had the effect of subjugating many of the tribes and keeping them from coalescing and growing in strength. The post-classical slave trade concentrated so much on them that the word for a slave - a cognate of Slav, made it way into several languages. Other invaders would follow; early Bulgars (A remnant Hunnic dynasty later to become fully Slav), Turkic tribes such as the Patiznaks, Khazars, and Cumans, and the longest-lived dynasties from the East - the Mongols.The Ukraine born much of the brunt of the Turkic invasions - their land was too attractive to horse and pastoral peoples who needed grazing lands and it was situated in a major avenue of approach for such peoples.
In the Medieval period, the Empire of Great Moravia was killed in its infancy by the Magyars, whose aggressions were diverted by the German king, anxious to both eliminate a rival and to prevet the terrorizing pf his dominions. This move proved to be foolish as the invaders soon moved on to Central Europe and as far and France and Italy.
Russia first came into being as an organized state under the rule of the Varangians, name for the Northmen (Mostly Swedes)that moved Eastward from their domains. My understanding is that the word Russia comes from the Finnish word Rus, which meant a rower, an attestation to their use of longships both on sea and in the great rivers such as the Volga. Like other European states, Russia underwent periods of unity and disunity in which principalities become independent. While Slavs that border Western Empire adopted, Catholicism, the Russians and other Slavs embraced Orthodox Christianity. This was to have a powerful effect on the development of the Slavic nations; they identified spiritually, culturally and politically with the Byzantine Empire. When Constantinople (The second Rome)later fell to the Ottomans, many in Russia were to see the Principality of Muscovy (It became the strongest Russian state) as being the heir of the Roman tradition and authority.
The Mongol invasions were to have the greatest effect of the Russian and other Slavic regions. Their cruelty was of a particularly savage nature and was applied in a wholesale manner to the peoples that resisted their domination. The Mongols lived off the tribute of the conquered peoples and vassal states of khanates. They ruled much of Russia and kept other principalities as tributary states from the early 13th century and were not finally ejected under Ivan The Terrible (meaning powerful or awesome).
With the many centuries of a frontier-state status, the people were never able to engage in acts of progress such as that which occurred in Western Europe. The nobility were set in their ways and the culture was a bit of a mix of Slavic, Byzantine, European, and Mongol. Peter the Great (Sometimes viciously) attempted a 17th-18th century version of a Great Leap Forward, but as a middle class as strong as that of Western Europe had not yet developed in Russia, the economy did not have the ability to take off and grow on its own - it had been too centralized and directed right from the top.
This pattern did not change much until the collapse of the governments and the rule of the Bolsheviks. What decentralization and middle class growth had occurred was lost in the stagnation of a Marxist state. Seizures of lands, terrifying purges, forced collectivizations, attacks on the culture and religion, and purposely-created famines (The Ukraine again bears the brunt), and the creation of a full-blown totalitarian police-state were to send this region into a backwards state that would last until the late 80's - early 90's. The horrific invasion by Hitler's Germany not only killed many more millions, it caused immeasurable damage to the industrially and agricultural infrastructure, thus undoing even what projects the Communists had attempted. It also made Russia yet again a frontier state with all that follows such a condition - only this time the threat came from Western Europe.
I will do Part 2 tomorrow-
* I prefer to differentiate between "Culture" and "Civilization" in the manner of German writers. To explain this approach as shortly (And probably as poorly) as possible, a society reaches the point of civilization when a culture has effectively given its all. The people in general have lost their virtue, desire to grow, intellectual and marshal vigor, and creative (Particularly in art and music) capacity. The shell of the Culture is maintained as a sort of a facade, and the people congregate in urban areas, where they start to become enervated - concentrating more on personal advancement and conspicuous consumption rather than living in and improving the Culture that was bequeathed to them.
*http://thehotgates480bc.blogspot.com/2013/06/western-decline-will-third-rome-take_5.html
Western Decline - Will The Third Rome Take the Torch? Part 2
What I wrote last night would no doubt be considered way too much by some, way too little by others, and way too generalized by the remaining third.
My point in starting with a brief background was to illustrate that the Slavic peoples, particularly those in the East, have long been held back from reaching their full potential as leading powers. Russia and the Ukraine's plight have already been noted. Western and Southern Slavs had to contend with foreign interference and domination from German and Ottoman powers and decades of Marxist rule, so they too were prevented from taking their place as innovators and leaders.
The main advantage of the Slavic countries in our era is that they still mostly enjoy a relatively homogeneous cultural base. Unlike the Western nations, their leaders did not go about bringing in near the amounts of immigrants from the Muslim or Latin American world. Consequently, their electorates, while certainly not always of the same mind, still have a sense of a common identity; a crucial factor in creating a vigorous and stable Republic or Democracy. In religion too the Slavic nations have greater homogeneity than the West; Catholic regions are still mostly so, and are those that are Orthodox have the benefit of a over a thousand years of their Christian beliefs and traditions.
There has also been some good news with population growth:
http://www.rferl.org/content/russia-demography-health-birthrate-deaths/24998304.html
Although he is raked over the coals for requiring that groups from other nations working in Russia register as foreign agents, Putin must feel that he has no other option. Hordes of all sorts of Evangelical and Fundamentalist organizations have descended on the Slavic peoples and relentlessly engaged in "sheep stealing" - the concentration of seeking converts not from the irreligious, but largely from practicing Orthodox Christians. As I noted in the recent post on the Evangelical factor in the decline of cultures, those who embrace this quite modern style of Christianity - disingenuously presented as one from the First and Second Century AD, quickly lose their taste for all aspects of their culture that do not meet with the approval of one's local pastor. When we are looking at a people who have such a rich heritage and tradition, a lot, tragically, winds up being kicked to the curb as the Evangelical mindset becomes established. Few things make my heart sink faster and lower than to hear a friend tell me that his Ukrainian wife's family is, for example, Pentecostal.
As the West moves steadily towards its softer but much filthier and morally bankrupt style of Socialism, the people in Slavic countries can say that they have "been there, done that". Even with the massive injections of foreign aid (Thanks to the banking establishment), the Marxists could never create a system that could compete with a system that mandates competition. When you have no real ownership over your work, you tend to just go through the motions until quitting time arrives. I am convinced that, when Western leftists assure us that "It just hasn't been done right yet", what they mean is that Socialism will work once the economic systems of the West have been removed from the board. If you take away the most effective players, anyone can win a spot on the team. I believe that the the threat of a restored Leftist system in any of the former Warsaw Pact nations is remote.
Russia is rich in natural resources. She has a culturally homogeneous people that has a great history but they have yet to truly make their mark. Much of the old industrial base from the USSR has no need to be updated, so it can be scrapped. This gives all of the Slavic nations a great advantage as they can start anew and in time challenge even China and other industrialized nations. Unlike the US, Russia has dropped the pointless and expensive military endeavors that were a big part of the Cold War. As I noted in previous posts, Russia even has the opportunity to reach out to provide security and some order to the Christians of the Near and Middle East.
A country long hidden under the rule of nomadic dynasties and Marxism, Russia has the ability to become what Germany is to the EU, only without the intentionally self-destructive mass immigration and Leftist propaganda in the schools. The Slavic world has a lot of open space. In the event that she does become open to immigration, Russia and the other Slavic nations have room for those who would rather leave the sinking ship that is the West. Russia has been a place in which cultures merge. I cannot rule out the possibility that, maybe a century from now, enough Westerners who are determined to live freely will seek to make a new home for their descendants - one that is likely to grow and avoid Leftist stagnation for many generations.
Many ancient and Classical works made their way to the West in the last decades of the Byzantine Empire. These contributed greatly to the revival of learning in the West. Those who saw the end coming could not bear to have these priceless treasures destroyed by the Ottomans. Like the farsighted Byzantines, many Westerners will - if they cannot save their own nations or culture, gather what they can so that the literature , arts, music, political theory, ingenuity and work ethic, have a place in which they can be preserved.
My point in starting with a brief background was to illustrate that the Slavic peoples, particularly those in the East, have long been held back from reaching their full potential as leading powers. Russia and the Ukraine's plight have already been noted. Western and Southern Slavs had to contend with foreign interference and domination from German and Ottoman powers and decades of Marxist rule, so they too were prevented from taking their place as innovators and leaders.
The main advantage of the Slavic countries in our era is that they still mostly enjoy a relatively homogeneous cultural base. Unlike the Western nations, their leaders did not go about bringing in near the amounts of immigrants from the Muslim or Latin American world. Consequently, their electorates, while certainly not always of the same mind, still have a sense of a common identity; a crucial factor in creating a vigorous and stable Republic or Democracy. In religion too the Slavic nations have greater homogeneity than the West; Catholic regions are still mostly so, and are those that are Orthodox have the benefit of a over a thousand years of their Christian beliefs and traditions.
There has also been some good news with population growth:
http://www.rferl.org/content/russia-demography-health-birthrate-deaths/24998304.html
Although he is raked over the coals for requiring that groups from other nations working in Russia register as foreign agents, Putin must feel that he has no other option. Hordes of all sorts of Evangelical and Fundamentalist organizations have descended on the Slavic peoples and relentlessly engaged in "sheep stealing" - the concentration of seeking converts not from the irreligious, but largely from practicing Orthodox Christians. As I noted in the recent post on the Evangelical factor in the decline of cultures, those who embrace this quite modern style of Christianity - disingenuously presented as one from the First and Second Century AD, quickly lose their taste for all aspects of their culture that do not meet with the approval of one's local pastor. When we are looking at a people who have such a rich heritage and tradition, a lot, tragically, winds up being kicked to the curb as the Evangelical mindset becomes established. Few things make my heart sink faster and lower than to hear a friend tell me that his Ukrainian wife's family is, for example, Pentecostal.
As the West moves steadily towards its softer but much filthier and morally bankrupt style of Socialism, the people in Slavic countries can say that they have "been there, done that". Even with the massive injections of foreign aid (Thanks to the banking establishment), the Marxists could never create a system that could compete with a system that mandates competition. When you have no real ownership over your work, you tend to just go through the motions until quitting time arrives. I am convinced that, when Western leftists assure us that "It just hasn't been done right yet", what they mean is that Socialism will work once the economic systems of the West have been removed from the board. If you take away the most effective players, anyone can win a spot on the team. I believe that the the threat of a restored Leftist system in any of the former Warsaw Pact nations is remote.
Russia is rich in natural resources. She has a culturally homogeneous people that has a great history but they have yet to truly make their mark. Much of the old industrial base from the USSR has no need to be updated, so it can be scrapped. This gives all of the Slavic nations a great advantage as they can start anew and in time challenge even China and other industrialized nations. Unlike the US, Russia has dropped the pointless and expensive military endeavors that were a big part of the Cold War. As I noted in previous posts, Russia even has the opportunity to reach out to provide security and some order to the Christians of the Near and Middle East.
A country long hidden under the rule of nomadic dynasties and Marxism, Russia has the ability to become what Germany is to the EU, only without the intentionally self-destructive mass immigration and Leftist propaganda in the schools. The Slavic world has a lot of open space. In the event that she does become open to immigration, Russia and the other Slavic nations have room for those who would rather leave the sinking ship that is the West. Russia has been a place in which cultures merge. I cannot rule out the possibility that, maybe a century from now, enough Westerners who are determined to live freely will seek to make a new home for their descendants - one that is likely to grow and avoid Leftist stagnation for many generations.
Many ancient and Classical works made their way to the West in the last decades of the Byzantine Empire. These contributed greatly to the revival of learning in the West. Those who saw the end coming could not bear to have these priceless treasures destroyed by the Ottomans. Like the farsighted Byzantines, many Westerners will - if they cannot save their own nations or culture, gather what they can so that the literature , arts, music, political theory, ingenuity and work ethic, have a place in which they can be preserved.
-and I hope, continue to be taught.
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