Fantasized vs. Actual Violence (3)

On November 21, 2021, after months of continuous racist Progressive/Woke rhetoric condemning the white race of all things evil, an enraged man committed mass murder at a Christmas Parade, killing 6 and physically injuring 48, by running them over with his vehicle.

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Actual Violence

In previous posts (for example, see here, here, here, here and here) I have covered the horrific consequences of Woke “anti-racist” (actually wickedly racist) policies on the black community.  I have also discussed the explicitly racist Woke trope that it is “gun violence” plaguing  our cities as opposed to murderous criminals who bear responsibility for their actions (for example, see here and here).  I have also discussed the scandal of the Black Lives Matter organization defrauding both their donors and supposed beneficiaries (for example, see here, here and here).  Finally, I have sought to expose the false racial virtue sought by the Woke (for example, see here and here).  Thus, I have consistently and forcefully argued against the Woke “anti-racism” that has so devastated the black community by its stupidity and malice. 

So, the case I have been making is that, when the Woke seek to recreate an overtly racist society, it is the minority communities who suffer the most.  But, everyone else, in various ways, suffers as well.  For when they stoke racial hatred the consequences affect us all.

On November 16 the Waukesha Christmas Parade mass murderer was sentenced after being convicted (emphasis added).

A judge sentenced the Waukesha Christmas killer to life in prison without parole Wednesday for killing six people and injuring dozens more after he drove his SUV into a crowd at the Waukesha Christmas parade in the Wisconsin suburb last year.

Waukesha County Circuit Judge Jennifer Dorow sentenced the 40-year-old man, who will not be named per Daily Wire policy, on 76 charges, including six counts of first-degree intentional homicide and 61 counts of reckless endangerment, with each homicide count carrying a mandatory life sentence.

The six victims were identified as Jackson Sparks, 8; Tamara Durand, 52; Jane Kulich, 52; LeAnna Owen, 71; Virginia Sorenson, 79; and Wilhelm Hospel, 81.

“You have absolutely no remorse for anything that you do,” Dorrow said, according to The Associated Press. “You have no empathy for anyone … no one is safe from you.”

The defendant drove his red Ford Escape into the crowd gathered to watch Waukesha’s annual Christmas parade on November 21, 2021. According to the police, the alleged attacker used a “zigzagging motion” as he drove through the crowd, seemingly indicating an intentional targeting of people.

The survivors of this atrocity read victim statements that tear your heart.  If you have an ounce of human decency, look at the victims murdered by this monster.  They span the ages from a young child to an aged adult.  This murderer purposefully and remorselessly mowed them all down, killing 6 and injuring 48.  I can’t imaging the spiritual and psychological wounds that remain in this community.  Beyond the wicked racial hatred, the joy of Christmas has been poisoned by this vicious act.

Another crushing aspect of this monstrous evil is that, aside from a few media stories and the community itself, the rest of the nation looks away, tries to ignore their suffering.  They have been thrown down the memory hole because the people killed, injured and traumatized are designated as “oppressors” in the wicked Woke ideological system.  

“Oppressors” are dehumanized.  They are the all-powerful embodiment of the “systemic racism” that supposedly accounts for everything wrong in the world.  When anything bad happens to “oppressors” it’s just karmic payback for all the evil that they have supposedly caused simply by existing.  Come the Woke revolution’s victory there will be no need for random acts of punishment, as the society will be organized around racial spoils and racial retribution.

This is the world being built by the wicked morons who presume to be our betters.  But they are actually bringers of destruction and pestilence.  They must be defeated.

Something Wicked is in Our Midst (4)

‘Bones and All’ review: Timothée Chalamet cannibal romance is gory — and gorgeous … Money Quote: “Both actors somehow turn young killers into deeply relatable outsiders. Taken at face value, they are monsters who should be maligned by society. And yet we are totally helpless in our affection for them. We just want what’s best for these CANNIBALS.”

The Daily Wire comments: “Now, we have The Washington Post writing a rave review for a play that casts pedophiles in a sympathetic light, suggesting their punishments are often too harsh. In a column titled, “‘Downstate’ is a play about pedophiles. It’s also brilliant,” theater critic Peter Marks praised the play for being “tough stuff, questioning how society treats those convicted of heinous acts.””

Coming to a pulpit near you: “‘I Left The Service In Tears’: Dean Of Trinity College Defends Sermon Claiming Jesus Could Have Been Transgender. Sermon claimed wound in Jesus’ side “‘takes on a decidedly vaginal appearance.””

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This is just the material available on one day.  But hey, nothing to see here, move along plebe.

Fantasized vs. Actual Violence (2)

Progressives imagine a world in which their opponents are violent monsters held back only by their virtuous super-power.

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The Progressive Fantasy

It’s difficult for a rational person to wrap their mind around the depth of credulity and dishonesty necessary to live in fear of MAGA or “white supremacy” violence.  The following sections discuss primary aspects of this Progressive fantasy belief system.

Police Killing of Unarmed Black People

I’ve previously commented on the absolutely bogus Progressive understanding of police violence against black people.  Just to review, this study by the Skeptic Research Center uncovered the consequences of the Corporate Media’s “Big Lie” concerning killings by police of unarmed black people.  Here are the results of my analysis for this study.

The “Very Liberal” and “Liberal” (whom I call Progressives) overestimated this number by 258 to 1 and 159 to 1, respectively (although due to Corporate Media propaganda people of all ideologies significantly overestimated; with the smallest discrepancy of 52 to 1 for “Conservatives”).

The 1/6 Capitol Riot

There are similarly fantastical beliefs in the Progressive community regarding the January 6 Capitol riot.  For example:

• They claim that it was an “armed insurrection” even though zero guns were found by police in possession  of the rioters.  This fact was confirmed by an NPR article that sought to mislead by use of the word “armed” to describe a range of weapons used by the rioters but none of which were guns.  Here’s the money quote.

But a review of the federal charges against the alleged rioters shows that they did come armed, and with a variety of weapons: stun guns, pepper spray, baseball bats and flagpoles wielded as clubs.

• Capitol Police Officer Brian D. Sicknick was claimed to have been killed by rioters.  But this claim was later admitted to be false.  Here’s the money quote.

A US police officer who died after January’s Capitol riot had two strokes and died from natural causes, the chief medical examiner for Washington DC has ruled.

• The claim is that President Trump’s speech at the January 6 demonstration “incited” the “insurrection.”  In fact, although he did tell the crowd to demonstrate at the Capitol there was not the slightest hint in his words of “incitement.”  Here’s what he actually said.

He said: “I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”

He said: “We’re going to walk down to the Capitol and we’re going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women, and we’re probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them.”

The Midterm Election

What about the supposed right-wing violence and intimidation that was darkly warned about by the Democrats and the media?  Given the shock and disappointment felt by Republicans about the Midterm election results, you would have expected riots and incidents galore by the MAGA hordes.  But nothing remotely of the sort happened.  

Months before the 2022 midterm elections took place, the corporate media saturated their publications with headlines meant to frighten Americans and get voters to buy into their preferred narrative. 

“Concerns of Violence grow as Election Day nears,” proclaimed NPR. 

“A spiral of violence and fear is creating angst for many voters ahead of the midterm elections,” wrote NBC News.

Donald Trump’s “Big Lie” was stirring up rage-filled conservatives who were going to take out their anger on poll workers and voters, or so said the fearmongers. The riots at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, were just the beginning of a red wave of blood and terror, they told us.

None of that happened. Instead, the left brought the 2022 midterm elections the Big Scare, driven by an overheated corporate media and a Democratic Party that used its usual media tools to help them “save democracy” by scaring the hell out of voters.

Inflating “Domestic Terror” Stats

Senator Hawley recently confronted FBI Director Wray about numerous FBI whistleblower charges that the agency is purposefully and deceptively inflating “domestic terror” investigation stats for partisan political reasons.

Hawley lambasted Wray for what had been going on under him, as he was ducking oversight and going on vacation. Hawley called him out for sending more than a dozen agents to the home of a pro-life activist to arrest him at gunpoint in front of his children in the early morning hours, even though he posed no violence or threat and had previously offered to turn himself in if need be.

Hawley also said that whistleblowers have alleged that the FBI, including the Washington field office, has pulled agents off of other cases — such as child sex abuse and human trafficking cases — to deal with Jan. 6 cases, to give the “appearance” (according to the whistleblowers) that there were hundreds of new domestic terrorism cases brewing when there were not. The whistleblowers also expressed concerns about the use of SWAT teams on non-violent suspects who may have attended the Jan. 6 rally and they’ve knocked on doors of people who weren’t even there on Jan. 6. All of this to pad the stats, because of a political directive, according to the whistleblowers.

These are serious charges that call into question any trust of the Justice Department or the FBI for fair application of the law or honest data concerning crime.

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Yes, the Democrat Party and its media propagandists attempt to scare the hell out of our nation’s citizens by claiming that MAGA and “white supremacy” motivated violence is everywhere.  And, if specific, substantive, numerous examples can’t be found that only means that the wave hasn’t hit yet.  This allows Progressives to justify their rejection of discussion with political opponents and embrace of police state tactics.  Nothing good can possibly come from this totalitarian mindset.

Is This Wrong?

How can I resist the double-nested meme opportunity?

Just in case you think I’m making this up, check this out…

You know, that’s an idea so crazy that it just might work!

O.K., I confess, this may have gone over the line…

OOPS! Sorry about that! 😬🤣

Thanksgiving, 2022

Fantasized vs. Actual Violence (1)

The Corporate Media (i.e., Democrat propagandists) boldly gaslights their audience. They literally call the “protests” “mostly peaceful” with flames and mayhem directly visible to their viewers. This shows to what depths of contempt they hold the intelligence of their audience.

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Introduction

Ever since the January 6 Capitol riot we have been deluged by Democrat and media (but I repeat myself) claims that the most dangerous and imminent threat of violence in the United States comes from MAGA Republicans and “white supremacists” (but again, I repeat myself).  From President Biden on down, this claim has been uniformly and ubiquitously delivered by the Democrat Party.  Most recently, we’ve been darkly warned that Republican “election deniers” were planning to disrupt the Midterm elections through intimidation and violence.

But ask yourself, beyond the dreadful January 6 riot:

• Can I think of specific, clear cases in which actual violence was attributable to MAGA Republicans or “white supremacists”?
• If I can recall what I consider to be specific, clear cases of MAGA or “white supremacist” violence, what proportion of the actual violence occurring in the United States do these cases constitute?
• If I can recall what I consider to be specific, clear cases of MAGA or “white supremacist” violence, how diligent have I been to discover information beyond the media narrative that might call these conclusions into question?

My guess is that, are you being honest with yourself, you struggled with the above questions.  Yes, there have been incidents of violence and even mass murder that have been blamed on MAGA Republicans and/or “white supremacists.”  The perpetrator of the Buffalo Tops supermarket mass murder, who killed ten black people, appeared to have clear racist motives.  But isn’t it fair to ask if this wicked person was part of a MAGA or “white supremacist” organized group?  The evidence for such a conclusion isn’t there.  Does the fact that there are still deeply racist people in the United States, a tiny proportion of whom will convert their hatred into acts of violence mean that we are threatened by organized, sustained domestic terrorist groups comprised of MAGA Republicans or “white supremacists”?  If you read the above linked NPR (hardly a right-wing leaning source) article, you will not find the slightest suggestion that the Buffalo mass murderer had ties to any such organization or group. 

But who doubts that the United States has become increasingly violent over the past three years?  We can easily recall mass murder at schools, bars and supermarkets, carjackings, riots, gang warfare and innocent victims whose lives were ended by stray bullets or random murder.  So, while Democrats and their media lackeys gaslight us about from where this violence originates, the violence itself grows and spreads.  And, by misdirecting our attention to fantasy causes they are able to hide their own culpability.

Civilizational Collapse (5a)

Who is the evil mastermind behind these moronic acts? It’s far worse than you could imagine.
Handout photo issued by Just Stop Oil of two protesters who have thrown tinned soup at Vincent Van Gogh’s famous 1888 work Sunflowers at the National Gallery in London, Friday Oct. 14, 2022.

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Literally 5 minutes after I hit publish on the previous post I came across this article FLASHBACK: Founder of climate group vandalizing famous paintings said Holocaust was ‘normal event’.

Just Stop Oil founder downplayed Holocaust and called it ‘just another f—ery in human history’   …

Roger Hallam — the founder of Just Stop Oil, a far-left British climate activist organization — once downplayed the Holocaust as a “normal event” and said climate change was a more serious threat.

Hallam, who also founded the climate group Extinction Rebellion, said in 2019 that there were many other instances of cruelty in human history besides the Holocaust, in an interview at the time with German media outlet Die Zeit, according to The Guardian. After facing widespread criticism for the comments, Hallam noted the climate crisis was another Holocaust on a “far greater scale.”

“The fact of the matter is, millions of people have been killed in vicious circumstances on a regular basis throughout history,” Hallam told Die Ziet in the 2019 interview.

This is exactly what you should expect from the leader in a movement that has become a death cult. So, this is far more than morons throwing soup onto masterpieces and then gluing themselves to the wall.  It is the physical embodiment of a social madness that is consuming our civilization.  And, every virtue-vampire who bleats climate change talking points is complicit in fomenting this madness.

Civilizational Collapse (5)

It’s come to this: The management of one of the world’s finest art museums has collaborated with “climate activists” to deface one of their own masterpieces.

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My wife and I used to regularly visit the Art Institute of Chicago (before it became a Woke intellectual sewer).  One of the many things that came to mind was that so many priceless works of beautiful art were on display virtually unprotected.  This, I commented, is an unmistakable mark of a healthy civilization.

So imagine my shock to find out that the management of London’s National Gallery actually collaborated with environmental wackos to deface one of their priceless works.  Yes, the painting is protected by thick glass, so no actual damage has been done.

But this is clearly the crossing of a civilizational line, where those supposedly responsible for the preservation and advancement of art are directly participating in its debasement.  Also, if priceless art is now fair game for attack, why wouldn’t the wicked wackos up the ante by targeting works that aren’t protected?  

Our elite class has become stupid and wicked because of their embrace of Woke ideology.  They don’t deserve our respect or support.  They need to be replaced with sane, civilized people.

And on it goes:

This more recent defacement occurred in a German museum of a Monet painting.

ARTnews November 15, 2022: “Climate activists in Vienna took to the Leopold Museum, where they splashed oil on a treasured Gustav Klimt painting.”

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A Small Dose of Levity

Is is wrong to laugh a little as the vandals pull down civilization?

Later Thoughts on the Midterm Election

One Senator’s opinion, but definitely worth considering.

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Generally, I stand by my initial thoughts on the midterm election.  It’s now clear that the Democrats will continue to be the majority in the Senate and, if the Republicans end up with a majority in the House, it will be so slim as to be virtually unworkable from a legislative perspective.  So, I append these later thoughts:

• Although the Democrats have indeed done much to demoralize their opposition, it’s likely that the current Republican leadership has done more.
  • They have continued the pathetic charade of bipartisanship while the Democrats have made it clear that their mission is to destroy the Republic and institute one-party, oligarch rule
  • They have remained completely mute and passive as the Biden Administration has turned the Justice Department and the FBI into a Stasi organization beholden to the Democrat Party
  • They have upheld the fiction that all the voting rule changes made under the COVID pandemic reign of fear don’t enable greater opportunity for fraud and thereby destroy confidence in our elections
  • They have chosen their donor class over their voters’ interests whenever the two come into conflict
  • They have made it absolutely clear that they would rather be in the minority than cede power to a new generation of leaders
• This Republican leadership demoralization of the base may be why the Midterm results were so disappointing
  • How enthused can Republican voters be if they think that a Republican majority will just slightly slow down the march of our nation into tyranny and economic oblivion?
  • How enthused can Republican voters be when their leadership provides virtually nothing in the way of a positive, practical renewal agenda, focusing rather on personal power and past hatreds?
• The cowardly, slow-motion surrender to the Woke by the Republican Party continues apace even now after their Midterm debacle.
  • Today in the Federalist: “Having seemingly learned nothing from their losses in the 2022 midterms, Senate Republicans are preparing to sell out their voters by working with their Democrat colleagues to alter the definition of marriage under federal law by the end of this week.”
  • More from the Federalist: “If Congress successfully passes it, the measure would allow left-wing activists to use the legal system to harass religious Americans and institutions for simply exercising their God-given rights. As the Family Heritage Alliance noted, the bill “would require federal recognition of any one state’s definition of marriage without any parameters,” including “open marriages [and] marriages involving a minor or relative,” and “any other new definition of marriage that a state chooses to adopt could be recognized federally.””

How then to place Donald Trump into all of this?  While he’s certainly not a member of the Republican establishment, he’s also certainly the leader of the demoralized Republican base.  Many of them continue to see Mr. Trump as the only person in the entire nation who not only stood up to the Establishment, but actually bested them, for a time.  Therefore he has tremendous trust and affection from these disaffected people.

I’ve been watching Mr. Trump, hoping to see him put forward a practical, positive agenda for national renewal.  Until his announcement speech last night my hopes have been frustrated.  He had seemed to be mired in the past, endlessly reversing his accomplishments as President and complaining about the nature of his loss in 2020.  While I have great thankfulness for his accomplishments (made in spite of overwhelming duress from every corner of the Establishment, including Republicans) and share his concerns about the nature of the 2020 election, that falls far short of earning my support going forward.

Mr. Trump’s speech last night was somber and serious.  He avoided personal attacks against his opponents while presenting proposals for renewal.  We will see if he can sustain this new posture, or, even if he does, if voters can be convinced he has changed.

What we need now is a leader who has the fighting fire of a reformer but who is also a demonstrated success at policy development, practical governance, communication and coalition building.  We need someone who is able to not just fire up the base, but also to convince independents and other outsiders that there is a positive, practical alternative to oligarchy.  We need someone who can fight the media, deep state and the totalitarians without creating unnecessary drama and chaos.

Donald Trump was the only man in 2016 capable of taking on and defeating the Establishment.  He was the only man with the guts and fire to accomplish great renewal while simultaneously fending off massive, unending assault from that enraged Establishment. He showed us that they could be fought, that there is hope for the Republic.  He also unmasked their true colors: vicious, totalitarian, stupid and Borg-like.  They are currently governing without the slightest pretense of decency or competence.  They know that they must cement their power as fast as possible.

As much as we owe ex-President Trump, he is not necessarily the right person to lead a counter-revolution against the Woke hordes.  He has had sufficient time to demonstrate readiness for the next phase of this terrible struggle.  Unless he consistently turns to the future and shows an ability to draw in new allies, to deal with the new electoral environment, to convince doubters that the Republic and freedom are the right future, I will consider his time as leader to have passed.

There are new leaders emerging who are worthy of our serious consideration.  The next couple of years will be messy and confusing.  We need to keep ourselves focused on who can best lead a counter-revolution against a powerful, entrenched, wicked Establishment.  If that person is not Donald Trump it in no way diminishes has accomplishments nor disrespects his person.

So, while my mind is open regarding the new Republican leadership, it is absolutely closed on the old.  Mitch McConnell has to go and Kevin McCarthy should have gone. The RNC leadership has to go.  The Republican campaign consultancy industry has to go.  The old Republican Party of cowardice, complacency, cooperation and capitulation has to GO.  

 

Embracing a Christianity with Tears (4)

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Christianity with Tears

Should we imagine that the leaders of our churches, who seek success in either congregation growth or control, have been immune to this process? Of course not! They have responded by recasting the Gospel to be about self-actualization, self-help and self-protection.  In effect, they have created “Christianity without tears.” J. I. Packer discussed this issue in the introductory essay to John Owen’s 1959 book, The Death of Death in the Death of Christ (emphasis added).

Without realising it, we have during the past century bartered that gospel for a substitute product which, though it looks similar enough in points of detail, is as a whole a decidedly different thing. Hence our troubles; for the substitute product does not answer the ends for which the authentic gospel has in past days proved itself so mighty. The new gospel conspicuously fails to produce deep reverence, deep repentance, deep humility, a spirit of worship, a concern for the church. Why? We would suggest that the reason lies in its own character and content. It fails to make men God-centred in their thoughts and God-fearing in their hearts because this is not primarily what it is trying to do. One way of stating the difference between it and the old gospel is to say that it is too exclusively concerned to be “helpful” to man—to bring peace, comfort, happiness, satisfaction—and too little concerned to glorify God. The old gospel was “helpful,” too—more so, indeed, than is the new—but (so to speak) incidentally, for its first concern was always to give glory to God. It was always and essentially a proclamation of Divine sovereignty in mercy and judgment, a summons to bow down and worship the mighty Lord on whom man depends for all good, both in nature and in grace. Its centre of reference was unambiguously God. But in the new gospel the centre of reference is man. This is just to say that the old gospel was religious in a way that the new gospel is not. Whereas the chief aim of the old was to teach men to worship God, the concern of the new seems limited to making them feel better. The subject of the old gospel was God and His ways with men; the subject of the new is man and the help God gives him. There is a world of difference. The whole perspective and emphasis of gospel preaching has changed.

I was laid-off from the Fortune-100 company for which I worked in 2010. I recall telling an Elder at my church about this setback. Her response was to the effect of ‘That could never happen to me because Jesus wouldn’t allow it.’  There we have the almost perfect crystallization of the “new gospel” as described by Owen.

So, now the complete avoidance of suffering has become our god. If an unwanted pregnancy occurs, we abort the child. If our marriage becomes difficult, we divorce. And coming soon (already here in parts of Canada and Europe) if an elderly parent becomes a burden we euthanize them. All of this is justified by our assumed right to an utterly painless, luxurious life; that is a life without tears.

Christ never promised this kind of life to His followers. In fact, he promised the opposite.

Remember what I told you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also.

John 15:20

Yet, in the face of this explicit teaching by Christ and the example of His Apostles, many in the Western Christian Church insist on assisting the idolatrous project of building a society as a “Christianity without tears.”  The consequences of this apostasy have been severe, both for the Church and the society in which it exists.

If we hope to ever again embrace a Christianity with tears then we must return to the Scriptures to understand and then be renewed.