Month: June 2023

The Leftist as Denier of Distinctions

The denial of distinctions is the subversion of thought.

A Substack quickie.

One distinction the wokeassed cannot process is that between hate and dissent. To dissent from what you say is not to hate you.  Failure to grasp this simple distinction is predicated on a further failure, that of failing to grasp the distinction between a proposition and a person. 

Hammer sickle donkey'Wokeass' is appropriate invective because an ass is a donkey and the home of the 'woke' in the USA is the Democrat Party the symbol of which is the jackass. Communists could not win here under the Hammer and Sickle but they are winning under under the sign of the Donkey.

Astride the Jackass at present is a man multiply defective: feeble in body, non compos mentis, morally corrupt to the core, devoid of principle, a traitor in dereliction of duty, and the mere puppet of hidden masters. Our geopolitical adversaries are licking their chops and preparing to pounce.

When you vote Dementocrat you are voting for the suicide of the West.

A Mistake of Memory

One mistake we sometimes make is to confuse a memory of a decision to do something with a memory of having done it. "I thought I did that! No, my man, you merely thought of doing it." 

One morning I wasted time searching for an article I had printed out the day before. But I was searching for a nonexistent object. I hadn't printed it out; I had merely resolved to do so. I confused resolve with result.

Memory, then, is fallible. But it is via memory that we know this. The non-veridical memory of having printed the document is known to be non-veridical by comparison with the veridical memory of having intended to print it. So while fallible, memory is a source of knowledge, and generally reliable, although its powers vary from person to person. 

Veridical memory  of wholly past events gives the lie to presentism, the view that the present alone exists. For if the present alone exists, then the wholly past does not exist. But what does not exist cannot be known. Given that some memories are veridical, presentism is false. 

"So what are you saying, man? That the past is real?"

Anti-‘Woke’ Parents versus Antifa ‘Wokesters’

Here:

Antifa members who showed up outside a public meeting for the Glendale, California school system on Tuesday got beat down by the Armenian parents who showed up to voice their opposition to LGBTQ+ curriculum in the classroom.

Andy Ngo comments:

Local sources tell me it was this use of Armenian colors/symbols mixed with LGBTQI+, pup play pride in the shape of a Christian cross that incensed Armenian-American families in Los Angeles & caused them to mobilize against the school boards.

Historical comparisons are tricky and in any case I'm no historian. Are we in something like a Weimar period? You know what came after that.  Or are we in something like the waning days of the imperium romanum? You know what came after that too. 

Is there an historian in the house? 

One thing is clear: we have a government that gives aid and comfort to anti-civilizational elements.  At the head of this government we have a man who is not only morally corrupt personally, but also in dereliction of his constitutional duties. A little south of this entry I quoted David Horowitz on Joe Biden:

He began with a brazen lie that he would unify the country and represent both those who voted for him and those who did not.

Then he issued a series of executive orders that illegally and unconstitutionally nullified our immigration laws, and welcomed a flood of unvetted illegals from 200 countries to invade our country. This was the greatest crime ever committed by our government against its own people.

The fish stinks from the head as the proverb has it, and in this case it stinks to high heaven.

More footage.

On ‘Breaks Down’

WalterHeadline from a fairly high-level conservative publication: RFK Jr. Breaks Down His Stance on 2nd Amendment.

Surely that is bad writing. I don't object to the use of 'breaks down' to mean 'analyze,' although the overuse of the former expression by journalists is becoming tedious  and all-too-indicative of what language lemmings they are. But what the headline reports is not analysis but explanation. 'Explains' is the word. Or one of them. 

No wonder journalists can't think worth a damn: they can't write worth a damn. The worst, of course, are the leftists. I deprecate them as 'journos.' The conservatives I call 'journalists.' They are a couple of cuts above the journos, but that is not saying much. Neither term is approbative in my book.

The visage of 'Walter' above signals a language rant, so that you may bail if such is not to your taste.

The Moral Depravity of the Democrat Party

David Horowitz:

“Woke” has become a term to describe the enemies of our country who have colonized our schools and taught our next generations to hate America, hate white people and trash our history and national pride. How to explain this travesty? It began fifty years ago when the anti-American, Marxist left set its sights on taking over our schools.

[. . .]

Many of you may have thought that the takeover of our educational system by anti-American Marxists happened overnight. It didn’t. It was five decades in the making. But conservatives and Republicans chose not to notice it. And when they did notice it, they were reluctant to fight.

If you want to understand the disasters that have befallen our country, you have to begin with the failure of Republicans and conservatives to aggressively wage the political war necessary to defend it.

The anti-American left attacks patriotic Americans as “white supremacists,” “racists” “domestic terrorists” and “insurrectionists.” And we respond by calling them “liberals.” There is nothing about them that is liberal. They are vindictive bigots, determined to demonize and destroy us.

[. . .]

The Democrat Party is no longer controlled by a liberal left but by Marxist zealots who willfully disregard the Marxist atrocities and failures of the past. Democrats no longer respect the sovereign individual, the rule of law, or the primary values of the Constitution –the equality of races, the spirit of compromise or the decentralization of power.

Instead, Democrats regard the Constitution as a white supremacist document written by rich white slaveowners, designed to oppress all other genders and races. Its mentality is that of European fascism and Soviet communism, and its immediate goal is a one-party state.

{. . .]

January 6th was the date set to certify the electors. On that day Trump gave his famous “Stop the Steal” speech, which has been maliciously described by Democrats as a criminal “incitement to insurrection.” This was absurd on its face, since Trump had offered the Capitol Police and Nancy Pelosi 10,000 national guardsmen to control the crowds. Trump’s offer was duly noted by the Inspector General who attended the meeting. Pelosi and the Democrat-controlled Capitol Police rejected the offer.

[. . .]

Biden’s inauguration was January 20. He began with a brazen lie that he would unify the country and represent both those who voted for him and those who did not.

Then he issued a series of executive orders that illegally and unconstitutionally nullified our immigration laws, and welcomed a flood of unvetted illegals from 200 countries to invade our country. This was the greatest crime ever committed by our government against its own people.

[. . .]

Read it all and propagate it. Do your bit. Vote with your feet and your wallet. Study the many works of David Horowitz to understand the depredations of communism and its latest incarnation as 'wokery.'

Budweiser and the Roman Catholic Church

They have this much in common: they don't understand their respective clienteles. 

Who drinks Budweiser? Connoisseurs of the brewer's art? No. Different sorts, but mainly country folk, rednecks, Hillary's deplorables, and Barack Hussein Obama's "clingers" to guns and Bibles.  So what were the head honchos thinking when they enlisted Dylan Mulvaney to promote their swill?  You know, that cute little narcissistic sweetie-pie who wants to grow up to be a girly-girl.

Beats me.  Apparently, drinking Bud makes you none the wiser. The 'suits' seemed shocked by the predictable boycott and backlash and have reversed course with an appeal to Harley riders. They should have gone 'whole hog' with  an appeal to outlaw bikers.

As for the RCC,   I have vented my spleen and blown my stack over at the Stack:

People who take religion seriously tend to be conservatives and traditionalists; they are not change-for-the-sake-of-change leftist utopians out to submerge the Transcendent in the secular.  The stupidity of the Vatican II 'reforms,' therefore, consists in estranging its very clientele, the conservatives and traditionalists.  

The church should be a 'liberal'-free zone.

Why Typos Don’t Matter Much and the Musical Watershed of the ‘Fifties

This is a re-post from 21 September 2011. I dust it off in dedication to my friend Dr. Vito Caiati, historian and old-school scholar who is excessively worried about typographical errors in his missives to me. He is not alone; he has recently been joined by long-time blogger buddy Tony Flood who shares Vito's worry. I forebear to mention still others. We scholarly types are punctilious, and rightly so; but this here's a blog, and a dedicated blogger maintains a pace that allows for stumbles and falls.

Don't get me wrong: love and respect for our alma mater,  our dear mother, the English language, mistress and muse, enabler of our thoughts, demands that we try to avoid errors typographical and otherwise. But let's not obsess over them.

Transmission of sense is the name of the game, and if that has occurred, then communication has taken place.

…………………………..

An old friend from college, who has a Masters in English, regularly sends me stuff like this which I have no trouble understanding:

 

Continue reading “Why Typos Don’t Matter Much and the Musical Watershed of the ‘Fifties”

Saturday Night at the Oldies: Nonsense Titles and Lyrics

I'm a serious man, as serious as cancer some would say. But it's Saturday night, a night on which I allow myself a drink or two and some nostalgic indulgence.  Tonight, the unseriousness of nonsense titles and lyrics.

The Rivingtons, Papa Oom Mow Mow

The Trashmen, The Bird is the Word. It is not about Bird's Opening. A partial rip-off of the Rivingtons. Cultural appropriation?

Shirley Ellis, The Nitty Gritty 

Shirley Ellis, The Name Game, long version. You didn't know there was a long version? Another reason you need my blog.

The Crystals, Da Doo Ron Ron 

Captain Beefheart, Abba Zaba. I'd like to see a transcription of these lyrics. California's Mojave desert can do some strange things to your head.

Manfred Mann, Doo Wah Diddy Diddy

Arthur "Blind" Blake, Diddy Wah Diddy, 1929.  Very nice guitar work. "I wish someone would tell me what 'Diddy Wah Diddy' means."

Zap diddy wah diddy

Little Richard, Tutti Frutti

The Chips, Rubber Biscuit, 1956

Beatles, Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da

Eric Clapton, Hootchie Kootchie Man. This one goes out to Ed Buckner.  Solo starts at 2:45. Cultural appropriation at its finest.

“This is My Body”: Literal or Metaphorical?

The question is moot, according to to Anthony G. Flood. The question of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist cannot arise for one who understands scripture.

“This do in remembrance of Me,” Jesus commanded His disciples at His last Passover, two days before the official Passover preparation that was concurrent with His passion. (He probably elected to follow Moses’ calendar.)

The antecedent of “this” is the Passover, given by God to the Israelites in Egypt and performed every year since until the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 A.D. Henceforth, as often as His disciples would perform that ceremony, that is, annually, they were to contemplate not their ancestors’ miraculous escape from bondage, but Him, whose body, whose very Life, would soon be given for them.

Most Christians, from Roman Catholics to Plymouth Brethren, believe that Christ instituted an “ordinance” or “sacrament” at His last  Passover. The evidence for that belief, however, lies in tradition, not Scripture.

Comments? I myself am insufficiently equipped to weigh in on this topic.

Addendum (6/5).  Tony Flood asked me why I linked to his article if I am "insufficiently equipped" to comment upon it. The main reason is that, while I am not, others may be. I am not a Biblical scholar.  In any case, my interest is in the issues and  problems the real presence raises.  My thinking is problem-oriented and I have an aversion to interminable and inconclusive exegetical-historical disputes.  I linked to Flood's article because it raises the logically prior question whether the presence of Christ in the Eucharistic elements is to be understood literally or metaphorically.  If literal, then we can proceed to examine the various theories of real presence as found in Aquinas, Scotus, Suarez, Descartes and contemporaries.