Weather or Not

Severe Outflow by R. Edwards

Statement on the Capitol Violence

by Leave a Comment

As most should know by now, on Wednesday, a group of apparently pro-Trump insurrectionist thugs illegally and violently stormed the U.S. Capitol. I strongly and unconditionally repudiate this behavior, period. I am resolutely consistent in condemning violence, regardless of who perpetrates it. No exceptions. People I might agree with on some issues do not get a free pass on this one!

This has been my consistent position throughout the social turmoil since late spring, whether the riots in Portland, Minneapolis, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Chicago, Denver…or this invasive lunacy at the Capitol. All who engage in these crimes need to be tried in the court of law, and where guilty, punished to the fullest extent of sentencing, no mercy. Violence has no place in any of the above settings — least of all inside the chambers of the beating heart of the republic.

One of the few people I’ll name here, officer Brian Sicknick, who was a military veteran, died in the invasion. This has been reported as a head injury, but more recently, potentially a medical disorder. A woman was shot by different Capitol Police while trying to climb into a broken window and enter. Meanwhile in other areas, police appeared to allow the rioters in willingly — apparently continuing a pattern of law-enforcement over-permissiveness toward rioting that we’ve seen in other cities since the summer. Regardless, this was an unconscionable attack on our core of governance during one of their most important, Constitutionally required functions: counting and certifying electoral votes. Whether you or I agree with how those votes were attained is irrelevant when it comes to having a violent outcome. I’m deeply saddened for our once-great nation to have arrived at this point.

The perpetrators, as it already is evident, were largely but not entirely Trumpers, as the left and most media claim. Nor were they all Antifa, as some fringe Q-maniacs insist. Instead, it’s already clear there were some substantial proportion of real Trump supporters (probably still a majority) and some embedded false-flag infiltrators. To wit, the former: the woman who was shot in the back by Capitol police as she entered a broken window was a USAF veteran and strong Trump supporter, with a history of Q-Anon support on her social media. Others there already have been documented photographically and by background to have attended and supported MAGA rallies elsewhere. The “Viking hat” guy in the House chambers has been photographed quite obviously, with the same beard and similar garb (but different face paint) at both Trump and anarchist/Antifa rallies, but seems to be a Q-Anon supporter. Another trespasser at the Capitol had a hammer-and-sickle tattoo, which is not exactly a MAGA symbol. Two others in Trump garb were identified as participating in the anti-Trump NYC demonstrations at the end of October.

This also smacks of at least a minority participation from the gaggle of general thrillseeking thugs who look for opportunities to make mayhem, who like to fight and destroy for fun, using the ambient protestors’ ideology as a pretext. There’s abundant historical precedent for this, from modern soccer hooligans all the way back to the street fighters of the Weimar Republic, who played Communist one week and Nazi the next, just to get in on the action. We can’t assume any particular arithmetic proportions of ideology (or lack thereof) amongst all these hoodlums until all the backgrounds of all the participants (arrested or not) are exposed and out there for evaluation. Does it even matter which extremism is at play, and in what proportions?

Regardless of their apparent or real leanings, I will not glorify any of these deranged thugs and give them the attention they crave, by naming them nor showing their pictures. I hope we find out more about the fuller backgrounds of all who are arrested for this, which I hope are all who unlawfully busted into the Capitol.

I unconditionally reject all rioting, no matter the specific composition of the insurrectionists in DC or the rioters in other cities, no matter their actual or portrayed motivations. This was morally and legally wrong. The left doesn’t get a pass, and neither does the right. And to the extent either side of whacked out extremists has been infiltrated by the other in false-flag operations, that is a particularly vile, evil and diabolical deed.

Media haven’t been as helpful as possible either. Those proclaiming the Capitol breach as something new or unique are pushing bogus clickbait hyperbole. Unfortunately, violence has taken place inside the Capitol on several occasions, including a few in the lifetimes of many still around today. In 1954, domestic terrorists from Puerto Rico fired from the spectators’ balcony on representatives, wounding five. Jimmy Carter actually commuted the sentences of these nutjobs in 1978 and 1979. In 1971, the so-called “Weather Underground” (a radical Marxist group not related to today’s “Weather Underground” that provides actual weather data) set off a bomb there, among other prominent places. In 1983, a somewhat related, far-left, female domestic terrorist group detonated another bomb there.

One troubling element to this latest incident was that Capitol Police pulled open gates and barricades, and waved in some of the rioters. Then they did the same with the doors of the building. What the hell was that all about? Who ordered them to stand down, and why? What purpose is accomplished by letting the rioters pour in, as has been done by police overpermissiveness in other riots in other cities this past summer? These questions need to be asked, even as I doubt we’ll get satisfactory answers from the (ir)responsible officials giving orders. “An investigation” is being promised, but I’m not optimistic we’ll get candid answers, even after the House and Senate Sergeants-at-Arms and chief of Capitol cops stepped down, and even if some low-level people and frontliners are fired as fall guys for stupid decisions made above them. After all, that’s how government works — especially in DC — find seemingly culpable people to take the fall, while the real masterminds evade justice. It’s a DC bureaucratic tradition.

As for the “defund police” progressives who now are complaining about the lack of stricter law enforcement at the Capitol: Which way do you want it, you hypocrites? A cop (a hero) got killed here. Are you celebrating that “another pig died”, as you so often do? Or are laws supposed to be only selectively and unequally enforced to the benefit of criminals on your side? As far as I am concerned, the laws need to be enforced strongly, equally, viewpoint-independent, under rigid neutrality with respect to the “cause” represented by the rioters. Whether burnings, beatings and destruction are perpetrated by Antifa, BLM sympathizers, white supremacists, Trumpers, roaming hooligans of opportunity, or just local street criminals taking the chance to cash in on chaos, the effect on the property and people abused is just as awful.

The cause seemingly represented by the attacker, if any, does nothing to change the healing of a guy’s skull that has been bashed in by a brick, nor does it matter to the lost inventory in a looted, burned-out store. Still, anyone being bused in from out of state to participate in or supply any of these riots should face federal charges, given the crossing of state lines to commit the vile acts.

It’s not hard to imagine that, even as they outwardly condemn the Capitol events, some leftists are quietly celebrating, even cackling in smug satisfaction, for it gives them propaganda leverage. Indeed, I’ve seen several tweets from left-wingers already overtly cheering what happened, for the same reason. Go to Twitter yourself and find such posts. It’s not hard. Saul Alinsky would love this. It will be used until the end of time to portray all conservatives or Republicans as violent, anarchic and/or fascists. You just watch. Never mind that they too have been egging on violent “protestors” (rioters) at Portland, Seattle and BLM events, for months…and months…and months. No one in the lot of them is better than Trump in that regard.

Neither side is blameless in the ramp-up of sociopolitical violence in this country. “Both-sides-ism!” you say? Damn right it is. Absolutely, unapologetically, it is. Because it’s factually true. Sue me. Both sides of extremist bozos indisputably are inciting and committing riotous violence, factually, period. No question. And it’s morally wrong. Meanwhile, Red Commie China, Russia and Iran are laughing and doing whatever they can online to keep it happening. It is in the best interests of our national enemies to divide and conquer any way possible.

I have not been a Trump voter, for several reasons elucidated up to twelve months before he was inaugurated in 2016, and but know many who are. It’s not all “a cult” as the so much of the left over-simply claims. I understand and empathize with why many people I know, who felt betrayed and belittled by politics as usual, and ignored or ridiculed in their misfortune by the powers that be, voted for Trump, and elucidated this back in July 2016, also before that election. Some of them rightly have come out to condemn this insanity at the Capitol. A minority of them (and it is a minority) persist in being lemmings following along his cult of personality, including some Christians. That needs to stop. This man is a bonafide scoundrel, a con artist and grifter, who only has been using you as entertainment, taking advantage to further his ends. He’ll make money off of this post-Presidency, some how, some way, especially seeing as he’s in very, very deep debt. Just watch.

In the meantime, he knows he lost, and finally has indirectly admitted as much, after seeing how much hell-raising he could get away with until he checks out of there on the 20th. In the process, he almost singlehandedly has wrecked what once was a Grand Old Party and set the noble cause of conservatism back decades. And in the January 2016 essay linked above, I told you this was going to happen. Yes, I’m saying “I told you so!”, because guess what: I did. In a bass-ackwards way, the left couldn’t have asked for a better ally than The Donald. What a selfish, shortsighted moron. It was foreseeable, because I did. And I’m nothing special. Anybody with half a brain could and should have seen this coming.

A Christian Perspective

I’ll offer an independent review of the Trump Presidency in a few weeks, once it’s fully done. [Hint: it’s actually going to be fair and evenhanded, not all negative, most certainly not all positive, from the perspective of someone who voted neither for him nor Democrats. You bet this lunacy will be included.] Still, to see some Christians turning a blind eye to the worst of his behavior is disturbing. It boggles my mind how some Christians can cherry-pick and “re-interpret” Biblical concepts to justify supporting someone who quite ironically, is a multiply adulterous, handicap-mocking, chronically dishonest, unrepentant heathen.

Spare me the hackneyed rationalization and fallacy, “God uses troubled men”. Yes, he does. It clearly isn’t true here. Those men, such as Paul and David, were outwardly and obviously redeemed by the Lord. I see no evidence of such here; in fact, his latest behavior is quite the evidence to the contrary. That’s not casting judgment, it’s reporting what I see based on the evidence at hand. Do not risk God’s wrath by using nor condoning the devil’s methods to do the Lord’s work!

Much of what leads to these riots smacks of idolatry. Trump has become an idol to a vocal subset of his voters. “Subset” means some, not all! Idol worship is rampant amongst some Trumpers, but no doubt on the left too — Bernie bros, Che and “the environment (for the eco-terrorists), anyone? Not just people can be idolized…ideals inconsistent with the Bible also can be idols! That includes retaliation and violence, no matter who perpetrates it, no matter why.

Yet the so-called “Christian Left” (a phrase I also consider to be a complete sentence) is no better, through their haughty smugness, as they employ all manner of interpretive contortions, rationalizations, cherry picking, and outright false teachings to own the “fundies” on social media. Meanwhile, this bunch of heretics supports and endorses abortion and sexual sin all across society, while selectively condemning the sins of Trump and his lemmings. Their behavior isn’t helping the Church, either, and in many ways is diabolical and seditious toward God.

Truth is in between and off to the side of the deceived idolaters and the “Christian Left”, and that Truth resides firmly, solely and exclusively in the Holy Word. Not me, not any other imperfect and fallible human, but only the Word of our Lord! How hard is it to see that neither sexual sin, nor abortion, nor violent rioting, nor cult-personality idolatry of any public figure, are Christ-like behaviors? Because they’re not.

And neither was this riot, nor any of the others. Think about it. How are violence and destruction of property in DC and Portland, or criminal mobs looting that Target store in Minneapolis, exemplary of Christ-like behavior? Answer that question honestly, please. Since when is the proper response to violence…more violence? To hate…more hate? How again is that Christ-like?

Imperfect as MLK was, he was a wise Christian leader and so correct on this count. These destructive, reprehensible and violent behaviors, whether apparently by Trumpers in DC Wednesday, or by the Portland/Minneapolis/Seattle/Baltimore rioters much of the last few years, are born of the World (mortal man), not of the Word (Jesus Christ). These all, right and left, are worldly, lost people behaving in un-Christ-like ways. And we as a nation have, are, and will pay for these sins at the judgment hand of God.

Backlash to a Backlash to a Backlash…

by Leave a Comment

For those who have been exiled in wilderness tents for the past two weeks, Republicans won big victories in Congressional “mid-term” elections this cycle and already are starting to assert themselves accordingly. A virtual mirror image of this phenomenon happened in 2006. Neither pendulum swing was an isolated event; tracking of national partisan results for President and Congress since the late 1800s shows that power is fleeting for either side.

Given such a track record, neither party should get too smug after a big election win, because as history has shown (over and over and over), that winning side hallucinates a massive mandate that doesn’t really exist, assumes too much of the electorate supports all of its favorite policies, abuses its power, then suffers a “shocking” defeat when the inevitable blowback occurs against its behavior the previous few years. That begs the question, why do these swings always seem so shocking when they are inevitable?

Partly, the surprise at such swings comes from shortsightedness and ignorance, both by politicians and the public. After all, we live in an era of flavor-of-the-year fads and ten-second attention spans, combined with an utterly wretched academic knowledge of history and civics among most of the populace. The tawdry misadventures of Justin Beiber and the Kardashian women are more important than the national debt or Middle East policy for far too many people, and that’s just pathetic! Part of the problem is that each hapless-ignoramus vote, from some schlub or ditz who can’t even name the three branches of government, counts the same as each vote from those of us who can name every member of the Supreme Court and who actually study the issues.

Politicians of both–yes, both–sides pander shamelessly to that ignorance, and the fear that they can fuel as a result. Those evil bad guys are going to take away your welfare check (left), religious freedom (right), bedroom behavior (left), guns (right), clean air (left), kids’ education (both), privacy (both), money (both)! And there are just enough nuggets of worst-case scenario truth and slippery-slope potential in such fear-mongering to make it somewhat believable. Don’t think this isn’t by design either; elections have proven to be won that way for generations. The Republicrat monolith that spawned NSA domestic spying and quantitative easing (corporate welfare if there ever was) then plays both leftists, and conservatives like me, for the sucker, because of a lack of alternatives.

Does this mean a continual mandate for compromise? Perhaps, on some issues that are not binary and where compromise is possible–usually economic ones where budgeting lines can be drawn in between partisan preferences. Both sides have a history of offering profuse lip service to compromise until it means they actually have to give up something. For example, compromise can be done on social squabbles like so-called “gay marriage”–and here’s how. Civil unions are a middle ground between zero recognition and full advocacy. The middle is always best, right?–or so the few true centrists claim. [I obviously do not agree, and neither do my mirror images on the left.] However, the left flatly refuses to compromise on that issue, revealing itself as hypocritical when complaining that the right refuses to compromise on any issue. And so the no-recognition and full-“marriage” sides dig in because neither want to accept that middle solution.

[As an aside, yes, I put “gay marriage” in quotes deliberately and without apology, because marriage by definition cannot be anything but man-woman; yet somehow I am just centrist enough on this specific issue to support legal recognition of civil unions for those who are seeking benefits related thereto. In fact, there is a very solid Libertarian argument, rooted in a literal reading of the Constitution, for no Federal involvement or recognition of any sort of marriage.]

Speaking of Republicrats: Secondarily, but importantly, we have no large, self-sustaining, third-party choices; as such, the electorate keeps being presented with a ceaseless somewhat-right R vs. far-left D target when what it often claims to want is the middle. I’m not sure a third party is much of a solution, however, because for every Tea Party that might rise up, so might a Green Party, and the republican democracy gets even more fragmented and fractious. As has happened in Europe, the Greens would siphon off votes for prevailing leftist party. The Tea Party (where I most closely fit) would siphon conservatives from Republican ranks. The Libertarians would siphon both. Good luck getting a majority on much of anything under that model, outside the occasional Green-Democrat or Tea-Republican coalition, and what does that yield? The same stinking dichotomy we have now anyway!

Personally, I tend not to advocate the middle ground most of the time. I am staunchly conservative and freely state this, with no reservation. Calling me a “right winger” is not just a compliment but a badge of honor. I won’t even pretend to be centrist on most matters, because I am not pretentious. I freely admit that I don’t want compromise on a lot of issues–because it only means taking this nation halfway to hell instead of all the way. If middle-road compromise is always the best solution, all the time, no exceptions, then…I am part of the problem, and moreover, am glad of it. [Now you be honest and ask yourself, is the middle unfailingly the best path, every time, all the time?] If more of my left-wing friends would quit falsely claiming to be centrists and compromise-seeking, and instead, be brutally honest and admit a mirror image of my own unwillingness to yield on many issues, we’d at least understand each other better in our endless disparity! We won’t agree anyway, so what’s the point of play-acting like we ever could?

That said, I also admit that compromise (as malodorous and “sellout” as it seems to me in many cases) is a time-honored part of solving some problems facing this country. It can be beneficial in the net to make compromises that neither side fully likes, on some (not all) issues. There sometimes is merit to the old adage that you’re doing something right if you manage to enrage both sides.

However, there often is no middle ground on more contentious, generally yes/no topics like abortion legality, a choice of starting military action in a specific conflict area, or Federal funding for (abortion, birth control, condoms, or any other private-bedroom issue). When the left controls the presidency and Congress simultaneously, a slew of edicts and even laws flow forth favoring their side. Ditto with the right. Then the pendulum swings with the electorate, disgusted with absolute power, voting in enough of the opposite side to stop the bleeding.

Therein lies the Founders’ pure genius in setting up this representative democratic-republican system (lower-case “d” and “r”): the voters get to tell the side that has gotten cocky and overly self-assured in power: “Enough! Stop it!” This means a halting to what one side or the other deems as “progress” and the invariable sore-loser whining by that side (which I fully admit to as a conservative ’06 and ’08, even as leftists refuse to admit now and in ’04). Yet the system works. Sometimes the car of “progress” need to stop, lest it drives us over a cliff.

In the most recent midterm elections, that “Enough, stop it!” message was directed at a Democrat-ruled Senate and administration whose actions (including those carried over from previous Rs and then made worse, like NSA/FBI snooping and the growing national debt) overflowed with arrogance, hubris, and contempt for the rule of law. I hold that much of the voters’ emplacement of Republicans in 2014, and of Democrats in 2006, was not out of a mandate for the favored party’s platforms (proactive voting), but instead a backlash (reactive voting), in order to check and balance the runaway presumptuousness and abuses of the other side.

Pendulums that are constantly pushed will continue to swing. And so it will be, back and forth, this and that, Republican and Democrat, tick, tock, tick, tock. Despite highly dubious predictions by Democrats, there will be another Republican President who, at some point, partly overlaps an R-dominant Congress. Those Rs will go overboard and compel a Democrat President and Congress, who will desperately do everything they can to push that agenda as far as possible before the next backlash throws them out. And so forth, and so on…

To deny this is to deny historic truth. Since complaints without solutions are worthless, what’s my solution? I advocate complete elimination of all partisan elections. No Rs, Ds, or other letters after any candidate’s name. Let every election be decided solely on the basis of issues, not letters or parties. This ideal forces politicians to be accountable not to parties but to voters (and unfortunately, lobbyists…something we can’t prohibit constitutionally under freedom of speech and association). At least this does remove rigid party-platform politics and the problem of a candidate being stuck at the mercy of his/her national party’s platform and money machine.

Is a party-free politic realistic? Not any time soon, but I see no realistic solutions…none. As such, we’re stuck with partisanship and division, like it or not. Get used to it. Deal with it. We’ve had to for two centuries.

The lesson is simple, the truth independent of liberalism or conservatism as ideals. Human nature is that power corrupts. This ain’t changing, at least not before the Second Coming. The pendulum will not stop, and each side will swap out control of government at irregular intervals until the very implosion of society and government itself.

Secular and Religious Implications of Government as Robin Hood

by Leave a Comment

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!

————–

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.