Category: Culture

Millenarian Mobs
An old and dangerous story.

The Americans who confess other people’s racism absolve themselves inexpensively by a moral mechanism common to humanity: the more I profess to hate evil, the more I showcase my own goodness. Such confessions, however, have a particular history of tragedy in Christian civilization. Again and again over the centuries, persons who have imagined themselves cleansed by ritual confessions have believed themselves elevated above the rest of humanity and, hence, entitled to oppress or even annihilate those around them. Today’s self-purifiers, arms outstretched in supine submission, who then countenance violence against persons, property, and cultural symbols, are mostly unwitting protagonists in yet another chapter of a hoary history.

Although Judeo-Christianity teaches that perfection is not of this world, nevertheless the Old Testament (see the Book of Daniel) and the New (Revelation, chapter 20) refer tangentially to a final state in human affairs in which all evil will have been defeated and the virtuous will have triumphed over their enemies. In the Book of Revelation, this final stage is to last for a thousand years. Jesus Christ’s warnings notwithstanding, people have hearkened periodically to “false prophets” who brandish the prospect of ultimate vengeance over evil. Between the 11th and 16th centuries, any number of movements of this sort used ritual confessions to cleanse themselves, and energized the mobs that waged Europe’s bloodiest wars of that age. Thereafter, though such movements secularized their terms, they fit into the same moral and intellectual categories. Now as ever, they are about destroying civilization in the name of altering the human condition. Continue reading “”

The humiliation of Western history.
Those who zealously seek to pollute the past are very much devoted to gaining total cultural hegemony in the present.

The most important issue at stake in the culture war is who controls the narrative through which society understands itself. At present, those controlling the narrative appear to be committed to reorganising society’s historical memory, and disputing and delegitimising its ideals, from liberty to equality. Take Netflix, for example. It is dominated by programmes, like Dear White People and Explained: The Racial Wealth Gap, that recast the Western way of life and Western history as irredeemably malevolent……….

Unlike previous initiatives designed to encourage people to look critically at uncomfortable truths about their past, the 1619 Project offers a ‘take it or leave it’ version of history. Its aim is not to criticise existing historical narratives about the US. It is to negate and even morally annihilate the very foundation on which the US was built. As the NYT put it: ‘Our founding ideals of liberty and equality were false when they were written. Black Americans fought to make them true. Without this struggle, America would have no democracy at all.’

In rejecting the founding ideals of liberty and equality as false, the 1619 Project strips America’s founding document, the Declaration of Independence, of every shred of moral authority. It also erases the profound contribution the American Revolution made to the development of the Western ideal of freedom.

The 1619 Project does not offer any new insights into the past. Rather, it seeks to contaminate the past and render it toxic. Indeed, one of the main contributors to the project, Nikole Hannah-Jones, admits that its principal objective is not to shed light on the past, but to undermine the moral authority of the present. ‘I’ve always said that the 1619 Project is not history’, she writes. ‘It is a work of journalism that explicitly seeks to challenge the national narrative and

Unconfirmed picture appears to show workers welding door of warehouse filled with chemical; report says authorities warned of dangers for years.

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This photo is making the rounds this evening on Telegram. Appears to show numerous parcels of bagged Ammonium Nitrate. Was going to write this off , but those are the exact same warehouse windows.

and also why they store explosives next to a shopping area with no regard for the possible ‘negative’ results.

Why Arabs Lose Wars

Arabic-speaking armies have been generally ineffective in the modern era….

It is a truism of military life that an army fights as it trains, and so I draw on my many years of firsthand observation of Arabs in training to draw conclusions about the ways in which they go into combat…………

Indifference to Safety

In terms of safety measures, there is a general laxness, a seeming carelessness and indifference to training accidents, many of which could have been prevented by minimal efforts. To the (perhaps overly) safety-conscious Americans, Arab societies appear indifferent to casualties and show a seemingly lackadaisical approach to training safety.

AUGUST IS NATIONAL SHOOTING SPORTS MONTH

While many of us practice our Second Amendment right through regular shooting, hunting, reloading and other gun-related fun each month, the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) established August as National Shooting Sports Month in 2016.

Originally created as a promotion for retailers and ranges to attract new customers during the traditional summer slump, it’s become a celebration among gun owners with an emphasis on introducing new shooters to the industry, teaching firearms safety and sharing a collective love of shooting sports. Continue reading “”

The long way home: a 2,000-mile road trip in an untested ’79 Pontiac Trans Am

All photos by Mike Musto

The Great American Road Trip is a wonderful thing. It allows you to meet people you’d never otherwise encounter, see things you’d never otherwise see, and experience this great country of ours in ways that only open-road travel can provide.

Today’s new cars are forgettable. They’re roving jellybeans connected to the world via technology that most owners will never understand. They’re tracked by all manner of computer, recording our every moment and location. In short, new vehicles remove the one thing that the automobile was meant to provide from its inception: Freedom. Some will say it’s foolish to run 2,000 miles in an untested classic, but I disagree. In my mind, it’s about the adventure of doing something few are willing to attempt and getting lost in a vehicle that can’t be found.

Antifa Is the Natural Product of Our Educational System.

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Antifa is an excruciating public manifestation of a very deep infection that has metastasized throughout our society from the schools.

It will only get worse if we don’t change our educational system—pronto.

Ironically, the beginnings of this change are one of the few, perhaps the only, good things to emanate from the pandemic.

With schools shut or online, many are evaluating whether the system serves our young people, practically (in terms of careers) or ideologically.

What kind of education is it when 95 percent of college professors vote Democrat, and mostly left Democrat at that?

Viewpoint diversity, anyone? Shall I home school my child? Shall I send him or her to college so they can come back Thanksgiving in an Antifa t-shirt and accuse me of being a capitalist pig when I just spent fifty grand for their tuition?

Something is wrong with this picture.

Change is undoubtedly coming. As a wise man once said, “Faster, please.” I don’t know about you, but I’m sick of mush brains throwing fire bombs at police stations.

 

Read the whole thing at your convenience

4 French Revolution Trends That Have Started In The United States
The bloody and terrible French Revolution featured attacks on religion, rewriting history, toppling statues, and abandoning tradition. Sound familiar?

Many recently celebrated Bastille Day, the day French radical revolutionaries stormed a prison, released its prisoners, and brutally murdered the warden. That fateful day, now more than 200 years ago, set in motion a revolution that led to bloodshed and a devastating loss of liberty in France. It also set the precedent for many future revolutions that took an unbelievable toll on human life.

Contemporary British politician Edmund Burke lamented that French Revolutionaries could have repaired the walls of their government and society instead of tearing them down. In an attempt to found an egalitarian utopia, the French Revolutionaries tore down almost everything that was traditionally French. An eerily similar purge is taking place in America.

To found their society anew, the French Revolutionaries created a new education system, a new calendar, a new system of measurement, and a series of new public symbols and festivals. Most forebodingly, they did their best to cleanse France of religion in all of its forms, opting instead to pay homage to the god of Reason.

1. Taking Control of the Calendar and Holidays
…….Now, there are calls to cancel Independence Day, change the name of Thanksgiving to “Thanks-taking,” and eliminate Columbus Day. Presidents Day, which is George Washington’s birthday, may also be on life-support. But don’t worry, new holidays such as “Non-Binary Day“ are being ginned up………….

2. Tearing Down Statues
All across the country statues of American historical figures have lost their heads. In Boston, a statue of Christopher Columbus was beheaded, as were four Confederate statues in Portsmouth Virginia……….

3. Seizing Language and Education
It’s a dark omen when language itself starts to be canceled. Classic children’s books are being banned because some on the left don’t like their language………….

4. Violent Hostility Towards Religion
Traditional religion in the United States has also come under attack by the modern radical left. And, while things haven’t yet got to the level of the French Revolution, the current anti-Christian climate does not bode well for the future……………..

If the problem was all of those ‘out of state guns’ you have to wonder why those states aren’t as violent as Chicago is (and they aren’t).
As Bill Whittle said 5 years ago. “Maybe it’s the people holding the guns” and …’because the place has been a poorly run criminal mecca for decades.’

The Chicago Gun Myth

Politicians blame out-of-state sellers, but the real problem lies at home.
The tragically incompetent mayor of Chicago, Lori Lightfoot, appeared on CNN’s State of the Union this weekend to deflect attention from the horror show unfolding in her city by blaming interlopers for its spiking murder rate: “We are being inundated with guns from states that have virtually no gun control, no background checks, no ban on assault weapons — that is hurting cities like Chicago.”

Although these accusations have leveled by Chicago politicians for decades now, they are a myth.

For one thing, there is no state in the nation with “virtually no gun control” or “no background checks.” Every time anyone in the United States purchases a gun from a federal firearms licensee (FFL) — a gun store, a gun show, it doesn’t matter — the seller runs a background check on the buyer through the NICS (National Instant Criminal Background Check System) database. In some cases, the FFL checks to see if the buyer has passed a background check via a state-issued concealed-carry permit. In states that allow individual private sales, it is illegal to knowingly sell to anyone who you believe is obtaining a firearm for criminal purposes.

Those who cross state lines to buy guns undergo the same background check, and the sale is processed by an FFL in the buyer’s home state. The exact same laws apply to all online sales.

Studies of those imprisoned on firearms charges show that most often they obtain their weapons by stealing them or buying them in black markets. A smaller percentage get them from family members or friends. Continue reading “”

No victory is secured by kneeling to the Enemy. 

JULY 26, 2020
FROM THE PASTOR
As a psychosis, “self-mutilation syndrome” is rooted in self-loathing and obsessive-compulsive behavior. Whole cultures can be afflicted with a similar compulsion to injure themselves. Nowadays it is called a “cancel culture.” To topple statues and burn churches is a metaphor for self-loathing rather than reason.

In their modern aesthetic recklessness, nations begin to disdain what Matthew Arnold called “the best which has been thought and said.” Even people who do not read much still can see much, and they can see that destruction of great buildings is the grammar of self-mutilation.

There was a sigh of relief when the French government announced that the cathedral of Paris would be restored exactly as it had been. But you need only look at some recent architectural horrors, like the Centre Pompidou, to appreciate that the preservation of Notre Dame was a close call. Consider the 1925 Plan Voisin of Le Corbusier for replacing central Paris with buildings that looked like refrigerators, to see the fabric of a society without a soul.

The burning of the cathedral of Nantes was reported with practically no mention of the winter of 1793-1794, when over 14,000 Catholic counterrevolutionaries were slaughtered in that region. Jean-Baptiste Carrier, the sadistic officer of the Revolution, mocked his own name by drowning more than four thousand priests, nuns, mothers and infants in boats designed for what he called “Revolutionary Baptisms.”

At the same time, another Jean-Baptiste, Gobel, was made Archbishop of Paris in place of Antoine de Juigné, provided he “take the knee” to the Revolution.
All atheistic revolutionaries kill their fomenters: Just as the architect of the Terror, Robespierre, was guillotined by his Terror, so were Carrier and Gobel. In a kind of cultural doppelganger today, writers for our most “liberal” periodicals are being fired for not being pure enough for the anarchists who have made their moral impurity into a religion.

Since the late 1960s, disciples of Le Corbusier among the liturgical “wreckovaters” denuded churches as arrogantly as the cults of theanthropy in the French Revolution. Convents subscribing to ephemeral “renewal” have now become nursing homes for women who once thought that labyrinths could be stairways to Heaven.

We are now in a spiritual combat as monumental as World II. In 1944, when the Nazis demanded that the Americans surrender during the Battle of the Bulge, Brigadier General Anthony McAuliffe replied, “Nuts!” The vernacularism was unfamiliar to the Germans, and so another message was sent: “Du kannst zum Teufel gehen.”—You can go to the Devil.

No victory is secured by kneeling to the Enemy. Those who do, will be the next in line for the guillotine. The Holy Church has the best translation for “Nuts” when proclaimed in defiance of the Anti-Christ: “I believe in God, the Father Almighty…”

Faithfully yours in Christ,
Father George W. Rutler

It’s a problem if they bring along their big city proggie politics

Big City Exodus: What That May Mean For Gun Rights

As things currently stand, there are assumptions you can make about people’s gun politics based on where they live. For example, if they live in a large city, they’re more likely to be anti-gun. By contrast, those in rural American tend to support the Second Amendment.

This is a generalization, of course. There are pro-gun folks in big cities and anti-gun folks in small communities. However, for the most part, these generalizations are accurate based on how people tend to vote in these places.

Yet something odd is taking place. It seems many in our large cities are bailing for the country life.

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TRUMP PRESSES ATTACK ON BIDEN’S WAR ON THE SUBURBS

Yesterday, we asked whether President Trump will make Joe Biden’s war on the suburbs an issue in this campaign. Today, Stanley Kurtz reports that Trump already has.

In a speech Wednesday in Atlanta on “Rebuilding America’s Infrastructure,” the president emphasized his determination to eliminate President Obama’s radical and legally baseless rule on Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH). Trump stressed Biden’s determination to “hold hostage billions in federal Surface Transportation Grants for states and localities unless the states and local suburban communities abolish single-family zoning rules.”

Holding this money hostage is Biden’s special contribution to the war on the suburbs. It goes beyond the already oppressive AFFH rule. As Stanley explains:

Under the original rule, localities could at least opt out of their HUD grants — and thus out of federal control — even if at the cost of millions of dollars. But what suburb can afford to cut itself off from state road repairs? With that addition, Biden’s plan truly constitutes a war on suburban independence.

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Atlanta, New York, Chicago, Detroit, plus Seattle and Portland.
Again, what is the common denominator? demoncrap administration

Amid spike in crime, a question of who owns the streets.
Atlanta and several other U.S. cities are seeing a spike in violent crime as police activity declines. In communities where trust in police has collapsed, how is public safety maintained?

The barricades were set up within sight of the Wendy’s where an Atlanta police officer killed Rayshard Brooks last month. According to local reports, they had been there before, set up by civilians armed with semiautomatic weapons, deciding who would be allowed to pass. Residents had asked the vigilantes to leave but were ignored. A member of the City Council had been trying for days to defuse the situation.

When Secoriea Turner’s mother encountered the blockade on her way home, she decided to do a U-turn. That’s when the men opened fire, fatally wounding the 8-year-old girl.

Thirty-one people were shot across the city over that July Fourth weekend, as the homicide rate doubled over the previous year. Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp declared a state of emergency in the city. But similar spikes have been seen in New York City, Chicago, and Detroit.

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6 Ways Leftism Acts Like A Religion
Leftism has transformed from an obscure cult into a dominant religion in our country. The progressive promised land is here now.

Conservative commentators have been mocked for years for describing leftism as a new religion of sorts. Since 2016, it has become clear that the modern left was determined to prove us right.

What we have witnessed unfold in this country over the last few years, and have seen increase exponentially as the 2020 election comes near, especially with regard to the Black Lives Matter movement, is an expression of religious zealotry so widespread, unforgiving, and violent that it might have made the Puritan governors of 17th-century Massachusetts worry they were being outdone.

Leftism is not a political ideology anymore. It is a full-fledged religion complete with tithing, penance, forced confessions, iconoclasm, internet inquisitions, public rituals, excommunication, heavily policed virtues, sacred texts, seminaries, and online auto-de-fes.

The proof is too plentiful to ignore. Here are the signs that we’re truly confronting a theocracy of totalitarian religious extremists.

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I’m not familiar with most of the people who signed off on the letter, but it occurs to me that most of those who I do know of are quite the far leftists themselves. Which brings the question to mind; ‘why are they pleading with their own kind to stop?’ One interesting possible answer is that they’re smart enough to realize that the rest of the populace is getting fed up to the gill with all this and when we decide to take care of business, they’ll be included just for the sake of completeness.

150 Top Intellectuals Sign Open Letter Decrying Cancel Culture

150 of the world’s top intellectuals, authors and activists have signed an open letter decrying leftist cancel culture, censorship and the totalitarian march of “ideological conformity.”

Signatories include liberal icon Noam Chomsky and ‘Satanic Verses’ author Salman Rushdie.

The letter, which was published by Harpers Magazine, is also signed by J.K. Rowling, Fareed Zakaria, Garry Kasparov, and, perhaps surprisingly, feminist activist Gloria Steinem.

“The democratic inclusion we want can be achieved only if we speak out against the intolerant climate that has set in on all sides,” states the letter, highlighting how “the free exchange of information and ideas, the lifeblood of a liberal society, is daily becoming more constricted” as a result of “an intolerance of opposing views, a vogue for public shaming and ostracism, and the tendency to dissolve complex policy issues in a blinding moral certainty.”

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“America’s values are grounded in the Declaration of Independence and Constitution of 1787, which are themselves outgrowths of the European Enlightenment and England’s Glorious Revolution (1688-89). The genius of the American Founding was to block the consolidation of state power in one location (the central government) or one branch of government. These arrangements envisioned a broad public sphere, where citizens could speak freely and assemble peacefully. Those arrangements were codified in the Bill of Rights.”

The Fierce Fight Over America’s Ideals and History.

Americans do more than tolerate calls to live up to our highest ideals. We embrace them. Martin Luther King knew that when he spoke at the Lincoln Memorial in 1963. “When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men would be guaranteed the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. … So we have come to cash this check.”

Honoring that check brings together Americans of all political stripes. Most think, rightly, that King’s dream is the American dream. They do not believe the dream itself is a fraud, an opiate for the masses. They reject this frontal assault on America’s history and basic values. They see it every day on television and, more privately, when their children come home from school and say what they are being taught.

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On Facebuk:
All the major media told me that the President’s speech at Mount Rushmore was “dark” and “divisive,” so my assumption was that he probably accurately described the left’s method and agenda. Upon reading the transcript, that assumption turns out to be — totally correct.

“Against every law of society and nature, our children are taught in school to hate their own country, and to believe that the men and women who built it were not heroes, but that were villains. The radical view of American history is a web of lies — all perspective is removed, every virtue is obscured, every motive is twisted, every fact is distorted, and every flaw is magnified until the history is purged and the record is disfigured beyond all recognition.”

Remarks by President Trump at South Dakota’s 2020 Mount Rushmore Fireworks Celebration | Keystone, South Dakota

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It’s not slavery they oppose, it’s American history.  Otherwise  they wouldn’t destroy  the statue of a former slave who spent the rest of his life fighting slavery.

Frederick Douglass statue vandalized on anniversary of his Rochester speech.

On the same weekend in which famed abolitionist Frederick Douglass 168 years ago delivered one of his most historically resonant speeches, a statue of Douglass was toppled from its base and left near the Genesee River gorge.
Located in Maplewood Park, the statue “had been placed over the fence to the gorge and was leaning against the fence” on the river side, according to a statement from Rochester police. The statue was left about 50 feet from its pedestal.

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Trump Announces Creation Of New National Monument — Here’s What It Is

President Donald Trump announced the creation of a new national monument during his Independence Day speech at Mount Rushmore on Friday night, dubbing it the National Garden of American Heroes.

Trump said he had already signed an executive order directing the garden’s construction. The monument will feature statues of great Americans from every walk of life, from music and art to industry, science, and the military, Trump said. The announcement came at the end of his South Dakota speech condemning protesters for tearing down monuments to America’s founding generation.

“Americans must never loose sight of this miraculous story,” Trump said of the American dream. “So today under the authority vested in me as president of the United States, I am announcing the creation of a new monument to the giants of our past. I am signing an executive order to establish the National Garden of American Heroes, a vast outdoor park that will feature the statues of the greatest Americans to ever live.”

The White House released text of Trump’s executive order on Friday evening. The order established the Task Force for Building and Rebuilding Monuments to American Heroes, which will be chaired by Interior Secretary David Bernhardt

The order says the garden should be open to the public before July 4, 2026.