Chrstianity

Scattershooting while wondering if any in the Soros-controlled media have half a conscience about using those Parkland kids as pawns to push their radical, extremist, totalitarian gun-removal agenda.

Today I have a few longer entries. If you have a thick skin, and you won’t regret entering the gallery. If you don’t, go reread See Spot Run instead. Onward…

EXPUNGE TOXIC PEOPLE from LIFE — A PHILOSOPHICAL BASIS: Classical stoicism and Christian worldview (as opposed to religious practice) share many common philosophical underpinnings. Given their geographic commingling and conterminous nature in the Greek/Roman power era, this is no surprise. To the substantial extent stoicism is consistent with Jesus’ teachings, this is a good thing! Among the common virtues are: self-control, fortitude, overcoming adversity with dignity, personal responsibility for one’s behavior, ethical/moral well-being, calmness with emotional discipline (anger control, shedding of envy and jealousy). Properly swap in God for “Nature” in the stoic upholding, since He created nature: “Virtue consists in a will that is in agreement with Nature.” [citing Russell Bertrand’s A History of Western Philosophy] There’s another remarkable commonality.

In that vein, I recently read a nice little article by Darious Foroux that offers wise advice for any age: Stop Giving Toxic People Your Time. The essay self-advertises its roots in classical, secular Stoicism, but is consistent with the Christian worldview as well. As such, it’s good for all of us, secular or religious. Who are toxic people in your life or workplace? Quite simply: liars, cheaters, manipulators, backstabbers, thieves (whether of stuff, money or time), and of course the sociopathic. In short, as the article notes, avoid close associations with people who don’t have values. They will bring you down into dark places if you let them. Instead, seek out the strongly moral and the virtuous as friends and role models, acknowledging of course that nobody is perfect, and everybody sins. Perfection isn’t the point, virtue is.

EMASCULATED “MEN” and DEARTH of FATHERHOOD: The wussification of American “men” is well underway and has been for much of the past 15-20 years, maybe more. Too few dads are willing to teach their sons what manhood means! From the Christian-worldview perspective, it means being mentally and physically strong and sturdy in keeping with our God-given biology, while at the same time, servant leaders of households (wife and children) — loving and benevolent, present for them, while also decisive and wise, and firm without cruelty in discipline of kids…and never, ever abusive or manipulative! It means real strength — authentic strength of mind, body and spirit, not the trendy fad-word “vulnerability”. The “vulnerable man” gets used, taken advantage of, beaten up (literally or figuratively), his self-advertised weaknesses readily attacked by human predators, and in the end, he is discarded like yesterday’s garbage when he is no longer useful to his manipulator(s). Unsolicited advice: instead of advertising your “vulnerability”, don’t advertise or hide it…just fix it, with authenticity!

The best outcome we can hope for from the feminist/leftist school-curricula indoctrination of (effectively or actually) fatherless boys, deprived of that sorely needed role model by a broken society full of broken families, medicated to a mentally awry extent on synthetic brain-altering chemicals from early ages, awarded participation stickers/trophies for mediocrity in academics and athletics, “educated” that Christianity is an outdated mythological construct for simple/stupid people, and emasculated psychologically through the feminism’s inherent misandry to believe men are not an equal gender but an inferior one, is that they somehow rebel in a constructive way and learn to be a real man regardless. That has to be rare.

The typical path is they grow into emasculated little pencil-armed leftist dweebs, bereft of strong father figures and therefore of any meaningful understanding of manhood as an ideal, instead perpetual victims “in touch with their feminine side”, and either wondering what the proper use is for that little bitty thing sticking out between bunghole and bellybutton, or ashamed of it. Sometimes the shame extends to a delusional, genetically absurd extreme of defying the XY chromosome and lopping that thing off, much to the insane approval of left-wing social engineers. The worst outcome is of the kind we saw from a deranged orphan in Parkland, FL. Fortunately that is rare also, but gets a lot of attention and is blamed on the wrong thing (guns). What we need are more Christian servant-leader fathers! I mean real fathers — expressively loving while grounded in solid morals, convicted to lead lives of personal and professional virtue, pillars of honor and integrity, leading households both directly and by example. Until we get back to cherishing that role (and that role model), expect more of the same. And more misguided blame…

TRUMP’s CONTINUED DEBASEMENT of HIS OFFICE and of CONSERVATISM: Speaking of personal and professional virtue, the Trump administration clearly lacks this. It’s no surprise. I have no qualms saying, “I told you so”, because it’s the brutally honest truth. I told you it was coming. It has. It will. I told you he would stain conservatism, despite the truth that Trump is not a conservative (but instead a pseudo-populist blowhard and con artist). He has and he will. I take neither pride nor comfort in this, because it’s bad for our nation. It’s bad for our nation to have leftism take over, which is exactly what will happen as a pendulum-swing reaction to this moron (who was a pendulum-swing reaction to an Obama administration that was highly dishonorable for other reasons). It’s bad for us all to have a highly unqualified, immoral and undignified President (regardless of nominal party affiliation) engaging in personal attacks on social media, paying hush money to a smut star over an alleged affair (while married to his third freakin’ wife, after publicly cheating on at least his first!), and firing cabinet members left and right. Donald — if you were going to let ______ go (fill in any name among many from Tillerson on back), why did you hire him/her in the first place? That shows a horrifying lack of either personal or professional judgment, or both. Yet as Mark Levin recently stated, Trump didn’t know Rex Tillerson from Rex Reed or Tyrannosaurus Rex. That’s readily apparent. Get it right the first time, you big blowhard! Apparently that’s too much to ask from someone so administratively incompetent. His ineptitude makes even the notoriously naive, facile, over-his-head Obama’s look sanguine by comparison.

Look, dear reader: as you probably have found, I think independently, am beholden to no party line, follow no herd of lemmings. I will not hesitate to praise what Trump has done right (Gorsuch, Mattis, Haley, agreeing to meet the pot-bellied Nork dictator depending on results), nor wrong (see above, plus steel/aluminum tariffs, tone-deaf responses to several incidents, vile and immoral utterances almost weekly, and too much else to list in brief). Hard as it is to imagine, the alternative was at least as awful. At the same time I am so glad Hillary is not President that even I, one of uncommonly gigantic vocabulary, have inadequate words to describe my relief. I just want to reiterate, for the record, that I did not vote for this a**hole either, and wish he were not the alternative to the unadulterated and multifaceted evil that the Clintons would have unleashed upon us from the White House. Where is the stoic, wise, knowledgeable, strong, intelligent, dignified statesman with a foundationally unwavering Christian worldview, who can and should be our Presidential leader and representative to the world? Will we ever have another?

FEDERAL CRIMINAL CHARGES NEEDED for “SANCTUARY” OFFICIALS: The Oakland mayor Libby Schaaf, and other radical left-wing state and local officials enabling and hiding illegal aliens, need to be taught this: illegal immigration is…illegal, under Federal law. Wow, what a revelation! An illegal act is illegal! So is aiding and abetting commission of a Federal crime by harboring fugitives, and also, warning them that law enforcement is coming. That makes her an accessory to a Federal crime. There is no need to over-analyze here. This is very straightforward. In addition to obstruction of justice, which is being considered, she should be charged and put on trial for harboring fugitives, and aiding and abetting a Federal crime: one count of each per illegal alien involved.

“SCATTERSHOOTING” IS HERE TO STAY; DEAL WITH IT: Finally, a misguided mind, whose name is withheld to protect his/her tender and insecure little ego, and whom I care about despite (and perhaps because of) their need for re-education to reverse years of high-school and university indoctrination in the ways of the passive-aggressive virtue signaler, recently suggested that I stop titling this periodic entry, “Scattershooting”. You can guess why.

Short answer: “No.” Long answer: “Hell no”. Longer answer: If you do not have the mental wherewithal to separate the figurative from the literal, nor the metaphorical from the tangible, nor to realize that being offended is a choice, I suggest going back to Romper Room and playing in the safe-space sandbox. Nobody forces you to read this. Yet ya did. Can’t take the heat? Stay out of the kitchen. Sometimes we all need to hear things we don’t want to hear. Call this love — tough love.

The idea of helping the poor among us is noble and correct–a grand calling of good. Of that, I know no practicing Christian (and few secularists) who disagree. The only dissension is in how that should be accomplished.

I prefer that charity toward the less-fortunate be done on the individual level, as each person’s conscience and/or personal duty to the Lord shall compel, through either direct aid or through reputable charities. I also prefer charity that helps the poor to help themselves–rather than the equivalent of dumping money into enabling of destructive personal addictions and dependencies (including dependency on government).

Any of us who are not sufficiently charitable in this life (even if that includes me) will have to answer for it in the next. And for those who don’t believe in a next life, you had better hope you’re right…and even then, there’s still your own conscience (if any) to which you are nominally accountable.

By contrast, some leftist Christians (including our President, apparently), indicate that it is the believer’s duty to make sure government will take from one to give to another, sanctimoniously supposing they or the government best knows the needs of poor and rich private individuals, as well as how best to spend hard-earned money of others once it has been taken from them.

[Odd how it’s others’ money the left wants, isn’t it?]

Just because we are supposed to “render to Caesar” doesn’t mean we encourage Caesar to steal more. And by the way, Caesar is dead, and so is the Roman Empire. This entertaining gentleman puts it another plain-spoken way, which I certainly can appreciate. To his reasonable rant, let me add more food for thought…

Forcible or coercive taking of resources, money or time from a person, in any form, is called theft. Ever heard of “thou shalt not steal”? Does it say, “Thou shalt not steal except to give to the poor via government bureaucracies”? No. Question answered.

Governmental extortion via taxation has proved for decades not to solve poverty anyway, by virtue of the simple fact that poverty still exists. Making an idol out of big government isn’t the answer. Charity–especially small, locally-based charity, is.

Every dollar taken from us in taxes is one dollar less we have for charity. This is mathematically unavoidable fact–not opinion. Now, for some experience-based opinion: indeed, private charity and philanthropy are much, much, much better equipped, in terms of compassion, familiarity and efficiency, to handle solutions to poverty than distant Washington bureaucrats with their bloated overhead, wastefulness and policy inertia. Maybe there’s a good reason that conservatives are more charitable as a group (individual exceptions being averaged into the general trend)–whether with money, time or blood.

Far be it for liberal Christians to assume that there is something inherently, socially noble about using government as a vector to commit Robin Hood style theft. Again, read the Eighth Commandment: “Thou shalt not steal.” That commandment applies equally to governments as to individuals; for governments are composed of…you guessed it, people! This means that all the criminal ills that afflict society at large also are present within government–including extortion, embezzlement, bribery, kickbacks, favoritism, cronyism, and assorted anti-whomever prejudices.

Those who work in some form of government, including me, are bound by our ethics (and faith, if religious) to check any such inclinations at the door. Even if only a tiny percentage of government fails to do so, that’s still many tens of thousands of people on a national scale. Do you trust they won’t get their grimy paws involved? Do you trust them to deliver the goods with your money more efficiently and effectively than, say, a local charity that is more directly accountable to the giver than some distant, faceless, nameless Washington bureaucrats? If so, I’ve got some land between Key West and Havana to sell you.

For all who claim, “Taxes are a moral issue!”, I agree–they are–just not in the way you might think. And for all those who advocate higher taxes (again, typically for others): for years, I have offered one simple challenge that no higher-tax advocate–I mean not one single person–has had the moral wherewithal or courage of conviction to take up! That says something about those who push for higher taxes, their willingness to stop bellowing hollow ideology and instead put money in place of mouth.

For the very few who might include themselves in the request for more taxation: do you believe you’re being generous and charitable by paying more taxes? If you’re part of the Christian left, do you think that somehow will get you deeper into Heaven, or earn brownie points with the Big Man that somehow aren’t available to those anti-intellectual, heathen, backward-thinking right-wingers–the folks whom you look down upon while claiming some high-horse position of pseudo-egalitarian social-justice advocacy?

Or if you’re secular, answer this: how is forced altruism (i.e., you can’t back out or change your mind!) not an innately self-contradictory idea? The Soviets could tell you: “It is, and so what. We take, regardless.” If you get your wish, that’s your fate, and that of everyone else too. I suppose then we’re all equal, all right…equally screwed!

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For more on poverty problems and straight-talk solutions, see my four-part series on poverty in America: (Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4). Part 3 is especially pertinent to this topic, and contains the taxation challenge.

Scattershooting 180314

Secular and Religious Implications of Government as Robin Hood