A very old friend sent me this link. My family is almost defined by its perpetual state of angst. So the relevance of this video to my perspective was immediately apparent to me. But I think it may be interesting to a large cross-section of people in our modern angst-filled world. Basically Kierkegaard’s theory was that anxiety was a necessary part of life and the way to ensure that it didn’t destroy one’s ability to function was to focus on pursuits that were passionately important so that this passion would sustain someone to the completion of his objectives.
Category: On-Line Article Reviews
Reviews of blog posts and other articles
23JUL2021 – OCF Update – The Prisoner Speaks
I’ve been washing venetian blinds all morning and am still only half done! I’ve calculated that there are 450 individual slats to clean by hand one at a time. Camera Girl is a harsh mistress. Pardon my absence. I will catch up as soon as I am released from bondage.
As a quick note I listened to ZMan’s Friday podcast and it was on “The Book of Five Rings.” The book’s author was a 17th century Japanese swordsman named Miyamoto Musashi. The book is ostensibly on the strategy of sword fighting but is actually a meditation on the philosophy of living in the real world. I thought his podcast was extremely interesting and I’ll have to read book soon. I wish the podcast was much longer it took my mind off the drudgery I am enduring.
Stay tuned.
Sky News host Alan Jones says Joe Biden is a Stuttering Senile Old Simpleton
And he shows cuts from Biden’s recent CNN Town Hall as evidence. Wait for the clips of Biden. They’re pretty convincing evidence that Dementia Joe is an accurate nickname. If Kamala is looking for proof to allow her to use the 25th Amendment to yank Biden out of the White House this should do nicely.
I say bring on Animatronic Biden. He’s clean and articulate.
This guy Jones is hilarious when he is ripping into Biden’s incomprehensible search for a sentence. Come on Joe, give us a noun, give us a verb.
An Interview with Victor Orban
Victor Orban is the Prime Minister of Hungary and a staunch Hungarian nationalist. He is trying his best to push his country back in a direction that aligns with Family, God and Country. And because of this he is despised by his EU neighbors. The openly gay EU leaders have been triggered by his recent passing of a law that forbids proselytizing the LGBTQ lifestyles to minors. But he is indifferent to their hysteria. The fact that Hungary elected this man four times speaks volumes about their superiority to our own with respect to survival instinct
Recently he was interviewed by a religious publication from Croatia. Here are some excepts. Note: This is a machine translation from a Croat publication and therefore not particularly polished.
How much does it cost you to swim against the dominant European political current?
Whoever swims with the multicultural fashion of this time loses everything that matters in life. True, everyone who goes against the current causes themselves a lot of problems. We pay a high price. Hungary pays a high price for not signing the Istanbul Convention, then refusing to support any Cold War policy; we pay a high price for not kicking the Russian president every day together with Westerners, but giving him the respect he deserves as president; we pay a high price for protecting the Christian model of the family; that LGBT madness has no place here; then we pay a high price for our position on migration and we pay a high price for not accepting the Brussels bureaucracy, but first and foremost as a counterweight to building Central European cooperation. So, we really pay a high price. But if we don’t pay that price, and if we don’t represent our interests, we may live more comfortably, but we will end up losing a lot more. We do better if we fight. I think Zrinski would understand that too.
How strong are the influences of pre-democratic structures in Hungary today?
In the Hungarian soul there is generally a desire for what is more important than personal life, which transcends it. Hungarians usually look for it in three directions: in the direction of family, nation and God. Usually, conversion also occurs when these three worlds are connected. It is a process that is progressing and I would not say that we are hindered by pre-democratic structures, no one else is responsible, it is our responsibility. Clearly, there are atheists in Hungary as well, there are opponents of the Church, there are liberals who do everything to stop the spread of Christian values. They have their own media, they are organized, they have strong civic associations. However, we have them on the conservative side as well – there are at least as many Christian media as there are anti-Christian ones, our civil associations are at least as strong as theirs, maybe even stronger; and we hold political positions because we have a Christian government. Therefore, the lack of spiritual renewal cannot be attributed to our opponents. The fault is not in others, but in ourselves.
You mention the soul of Europe, the spiritual struggle. Is the current political struggle actually the materialization of a spiritual struggle waged in the background?
Politics takes place on three levels simultaneously. The first level is practical: it deals with issues related to power, the acceptance of the budget, the appointment of persons, the maintenance of order. I would call the second level a vision, because all national communities must have a vision. What will happen to the Hungarians, not tomorrow morning, but in five, 10, 20 years? However, behind everything there is another broader dimension, the world of transcendence. We live in that dimension as well, and it is a part of life. In Hungarian political thought, this is called the problem of majority and truth. It could be said like this: if someone has a majority, but does not strive for the truth with that majority, what will the majority do for him? It’s just profanation. If, on the other hand, one advocates the truth but cannot move the majority, how will he act in the interest of that truth? It is a key challenge of Christian politics that emerges in democratic conditions. To simplify, we no longer have sacral kings anointed by God, so we must exist in a democracy, connecting the majority and the truth. It is not easy, but it is possible. Demo-Christian politics also has its mandate in relation to Christian culture. Christianity, first of all, created a free man. Therefore, we must first and foremost protect human dignity. Then, Christianity created a Christian family. We must protect the concept of the Christian family. Furthermore, Christianity has created nations in this part of the world. If we, the Hungarians, had not followed Christianity for a thousand years, we would have disappeared, so we must also protect the nation. But we must also protect religious communities and the Church. To summarize, our task is not to protect theological principles, it is the mission of the Church, but the great Christian achievements of civilization. And when I protect them, I fight not only with the sword, I use not only power, but also arguments.
ZMan Has a Nice Summary of the COVID Crap Fest
ZMan summarizes the progression of misinformation and outright lies that continues to be the government’s response to an ugly reality. His conclusion is accurate. The whole thing has been handled badly and is now just an unnecessary government intrusion into the lives and livelihood of its citizens.
The ZMan Doesn’t Hate J. D. Vance!
I suspect the FBI has swatted the ZMan, spirited him away to an underground, under-volcano lair for torture and replaced him with a robotic imposter. How else to explain this post where he more or less declares that J. D. Vance might just not be an establishment fink. Be still my beating heart.
Well, good for the ZMan. Being a protege of Peter Thiel I imagine Vance is a very smart guy who has one foot in the cloud world but with still one foot dragging wistfully on the dirt side. Let’s call him an ally for now.
14JUL2021 – City Journal – Why Cops Are Quitting by Charles Fain Lehman
Here’s an article where the writer interviewed policemen who had either just resigned or were preparing to. He gets their read on why policing the blue cities is no longer worth the personal risk.
A newly retired Minneapolis officer said, “And the fundamental conclusion that I reached was that following Derek Chauvin, it no longer matters if what you were doing was legal, trained, the morally right thing to do, reasonable under the circumstances, the best effort of a reasonable human being in a marginal circumstance, which is basically what cops do. None of that matters. What matters is the outcome, and if you become the next spark in a viral firestorm.”
Basically the officers know the mayors and the police commissioners don’t have their backs, “There’s not a single leader that steps up for the regular cop, the regular street cop,” a now-resigned Chicago officer said. “They have the power, they have the ability to get up there and say why this was justified, and then they can sit there and explain it if they want, but they don’t know how to, or they don’t want to, or they don’t care.”
Reading the comments I found several readers who have my opinion. Let the voters of Minneapolis and Portland and Chicago stay in their cities and defend themselves once the police are no longer there to protect them from the mob they’ve created.
7JUL2021 – American Greatness Post of the Day – Codevilla Talks About Trump
Angelo Codevilla has an article that analyzes Trump’s invaluable action as a catalyst but also the failures of his administration to drain the swamp. It’s a good analysis of the 2016 election and its consequences. Codevilla claims that Trump’s awakening of the country against the Elites is what triggered them to drop the mask and tighten the oligarchic controls that they already possessed.
He then talks about the failed chances to rein in the Deep State and goes on to discuss what future leaders must do to restore our freedom. Even if you do not agree with every interpretation of the events or conclusion it is a very thought provoking read.
This article feeds into my own process of trying to figure out how we move forward from the awful place we currently find ourselves in. If there is to be any hope of pushing back against the forces that are actively working to destroy our society competent leaders will have to step forward with workable plans and a gigantic dose of audacity.
Culture Wars are Long Wars – An Essay by Tanner Greer
This fellow provides supporting evidence for his thesis that the culture war has permanently captured the millennial generation and the people we need to convince and convert are Gen Z. So his theory is that as the millennials take over the running of the country their belief in socialism and woke morality will be the orthodoxy of this society and it will take another generation to escape from it. That’s a pretty sobering thought. If you’re interested in theories on how orthodoxies become established and then overthrown take a look.
Codevilla Proposes a Plan for Avoiding a Civil War – Federalism
Anthony Codevilla lays out how he sees restoring a way of life would have to take place in the United States. And he clearly says that neither side is going to convince the other side to go along with it. But he thinks the only way to avoid actual warfare is for the two sides to separate along regional or even local areas and ignore each other. In this way the larger country can still cooperate on things like roads and armed forces without having to completely split the country in two.
It’s very long but worth reading if you enjoy an historian’s recapping of the historical precedence for re-establishing a conquered nation. He goes into the way he thinks a national leader has to act to have this movement succeed. And he does say that a strong leader will be necessary.