Can I Get a Hallelujah

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Well, what shall I write tonight?  Nothing too down tonight.  There’s plenty to cry about but let’s raise our spirits instead.  You know I talk about how a leader is what we are missing.  But maybe a Caesar is not what we need.  Maybe we need a Preacher.  The churches have mostly rotted away and it shows.  People are empty and bitter and alone.

A man of the spirit might be exactly what this country; even this world needs.  Someone who could speak to us about how to fill up the void with meaning.  Give people hope.  I don’t think it will be someone who talks only about the hereafter.  It will need to be someone who has practical advice for this world.  And he can’t be a televangelist, at least not at first and never only.  This will have to be a hands-on man who builds his flock around him and builds some kind of community that helps people in the here and now.

What’s needed is a church that harnesses the people to help each other and builds something where everyone gets a sense of belonging to something worthwhile and true.  I think someone who could make that happen would rebuild this country.  It would have a place for all the parts of the community.  There will be things for the young, the mature and the old to do.  The young will learn, the old will teach and the grown-ups will support it with their time and money.  Eventually there will need to be a school to teach children the lessons they can’t learn in the public school.  Ideally, one day there should be a university too.  There should be youth organizations and sports teams.  There should be fraternal and sorority organizations for the kids and grown-ups.  Something will be needed to replace things like the Boy Scouts.  And the adults need their clubs too.  And the church should have charitable functions.  But these need to require that those who have been helped pay it forward by contributing their efforts to the community.

And what creed will this be?  Well, it will be Christianity but it will be non-denominational.  It won’t require that you have a required doctrine on the Trinity or the Immaculate Conception or Limbo.  If Jesus runs the Heaven you are trying to get in then you fit under this tent.

Well, that’s what I think we need.  People need to belong to something that provides a way to organize with their neighbors in a way that gives them a sense of community and fulfills their desire to belong to something constructive and adheres to what they believe is the good.

But how do you order up a holy man?  They only show up once every five hundred years.  The last one was Martin Luther (which was about five hundred years ago!).  They say that God provides what is needed.  Well, I think we are beyond need.  We’re desperate.

So, whether he calls himself Brother or Father, Padre or Reverend; it’s exactly the right time for a revival.  In fact, it may be the only thing that can save us.

Eleven to One

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Everybody talks about the polarization between the Left and the Right in this country.  I don’t think it’s overstated.  The Trump hush money trial in Manhattan is the perfect litmus test for this polarization.  If you can believe that he is getting a fair trial then you are living in a separate reality.  The degree to which the judge has put his thumb on the scales of justice is pretty breathtaking.  He has managed to instruct the jury that beyond a reasonable doubt is no longer the criterion for conviction.  In fact, he is allowing the jurors to decide what exactly the underlying crime is without recourse to any particular part of the penal code.

But I guess I’m curious what percentage of the population in this country is okay with this.  Because even if it’s as low as forty five percent then that’s a really big problem.  The Left is about a third of the populace.  If there is another twelve percent of the people who are completely on board with a court railroading a presidential candidate just because they don’t like the way he parts his hair then we’re already past the point where things can be fixed.  There has to be two thirds or at least three fifths of the people who are relatively sane to protect us all from the crazies.  We can’t expect to just squeak past every one of the forks in the road where the insane are pushing us to ride off a cliff.  It can’t always be 51-49.  One of these days we will go over the edge.

Many years ago, I served on a jury where the prosecution was trying to railroad a guy on a charge of making a death threat against his ex-wife.    After the trial the judge shared with us that there was an underlying custody battle going on and this charge was a part of that struggle.  But the only person who supposedly had heard the threat was the couple’s two-year-old daughter.  Her mother claimed that the girl had told her of the threat that her father had made in front of her during a visit with him.  But every time they tried to put the two-year-old on the witness stand she burst into tears and then we were sequestered while the prosecution attempted to bolster the little girl for the next attempt at questioning.  After the third attempt the judge put an end to this charade and we were sent into the jury room to deliberate.  Well, I’ll tell you it was 11-1 and I don’t suppose you have to wonder who was one.  Eventually they tried to talk me into splitting the decision by voting guilty to one of the lesser charges.  You know, split the difference.  So, I asked them what part of beyond a reasonable doubt didn’t apply to any of the charges.

Now that day I had gone into the courtroom determined to hang’em high.  No namby-pamby bleeding-heart nonsense for me.  The guilty must pay.  And this guy didn’t look like me or lived his life as I did.  But suddenly all these other people who looked and lived like me were exposing their real feelings about unbiased justice.  They were just picking the side they liked.  To hell with the facts or the lack of facts.  They were willing to send this man to prison for five years without proof.  It was monstrous.

Three hours later they called it a hung jury and the judge talked to us and admitted that using a two-year-old as a witness was ludicrous and a little cruel.  But my fellow jurors were very angry with me.  They wanted to send a message regardless of the facts; “believe the woman.”  Going home that night I had a sickening feeling about what justice in this country had become.  Imagine your fate is decided not by the evidence but by what you look like.  That was a chilling discovery.

Now I know it’s a forlorn hope, but I admit I’d love to see an 11-1 hung jury.  That would send a powerful message that there are still a few honest men left.  And we really do need that message.  Because otherwise there isn’t any way that we can go forward together.  If the truth is just an inconvenience that we have to shrug off to get what we want then we’re doomed.

Update – 30MAY2024 – Yep, we’re doomed.

ZMan and Trump

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In a particularly thoughtful article the ZMan considers the spectacle going on in a Manhattan courtroom where Donald Trump is being given the full treatment from a cartoonish New York City legal system that is astonishing in its corruptness.

I think it speaks well of ZMan that he recognizes the stark contrast between Trump and his enemies.  Even while rejecting and even reviling Trump’s civic nationalism ZMan points out the stark superiority of the man versus his odious enemies.

A good read.

Trump The Elephant

Must Supply Own Tall Top Hat, Riding Boots and Whip

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“Conservative” is now a term of derision.  People in the dissident right use it as a swear word.  I guess the replacement term for the people who resist the progressives is now simply “the right.”

Well, whatever you call them and whatever they believe in, they are a mess.  Organizationally, their leadership is nominally the Republican party and that’s as laughably absurd as anything imaginable.  That would be like an organization of sheep electing a wolf pack as their police department.

Now, I guess you can say that Donald Trump has taken the first baby steps toward changing that situation.  His candidacy has driven certain absurdly obvious RINOs out of the party.  The best documented case is Liz Cheney being primaried out of her seat.  But only slightly less hilarious is the ejection of Mitt Romney from his senate seat.  Technically he refused to run for re-election.  But despite his claim that he was afraid of assassination by rogue Bugaloo Boys the truth was that he knew he was going to be primaried out of his seat.  And Trump’s presidential campaign has forced the likes of even Nikki Haley to kiss the ring in order to even remain in the party for the future.

But these truly are baby steps.  What is needed is an organization that reaches from the local grassroots all the way up to state and national leaders.  And it needs to be doing much more than politics.  Let’s face it, politics is just influence peddling and what needs to be enacted is a way for us to band together to buy influence from the crooks we hire as the face of the party.  Sure, we know they’re selling themselves to the contractors but at least let’s prevent them from being bought by the contractors who hate us.  Let’s make sure that GLAAD and the other left-wing NGOs are restricted to buying influence from the Democrats.

After all, a phony like Marco Rubio can be made to act in his own best interests and mimic right-wing talking points to keep himself on the gravy train.  He’s not a Liz Cheney or a Mitt Romney.  He doesn’t believe in the Left’s values.  In fact, he doesn’t believe in anything at all so he’s a blank slate that can be bought for the price of a pot of gold.  And he’ll stay bought as long as the gold keeps coming.  Mitt Romney on the other hand, belongs to the same clubs as George Bush, Bill Clinton and now Barack Obama.  He’s following his social set with respect to what behaviors need to be favored and which curtailed.    It’s as natural as breathing for him to hate us and force us to submit to their code of behavior.

So, what is needed is an old-fashioned political boss.  Someone who doesn’t run for office but controls the politicians and makes sure they do our bidding.  Maybe someone in Trump’s camp can be that boss.  Maybe Junior wants that job.  Maybe not.  But I think we need someone to do it.  The only way we make such a job attractive is by providing it with the power to get things done.  And the only source of power in Washington is money.  So, we’d each have to pony up cash to get a circus master that makes the carneys dance for us.  And that’s definitely doable.  If there are fifty million people on the right (more than that number voted for Trump) and they each donated one hundred dollars a year, that’s five billion dollars a year.  You can get a lot done for five billion.

Of course, for that much money I’d expect a lot of results.  At the very least I’d want the phonies from the National Review forced to act as dunk tank clowns at the CPAC closing ceremony.  And I’d want the Bushes burned in effigy at the Republican National Convention.  But beyond that I’d want some kind of accurate scorecard for each member of Congress and for any with a failing score I want to know the date of his upcoming primary election and who will replace him.

But seriously, what would be more important from a political boss is the backroom deals with private corporations to provide measurable progress on social issues that we favor.  So, if Disney wants some tax breaks or approval of an acquisition they’ll have to quit their LGBTQ activism.  And likewise, companies that take sides in the culture wars can be reined in with the correct use of a carrot or a stick.  None of this is rocket science.  Money talks and that’s what it would take to change the political system we live under.  Hopefully there’s someone who can do the math thinking about this.