Blogging – David's Commonplace Book

They Are Afraid

Sarah Hoyt at Instapundit links to this essay, The Frightened Left, by Victor Davis Hanson. Like everything Victor Davis Hanson writes; it is worth reading, but that is not my concern. My concern, rather, is with the comments left on the Instapundit post. It seemed to me that many of the comments that Instapundit readers posted were some variation of “Of course, the left is not frightened. They have become all-powerful. They control every institution in the United States and have nothing to fear from the people. That represents an attitude that has become all too typical among the right. a sense of doom and gloom pessimism. The left has won, they say, and all we can do is reminisce about our lost country.

I think they are wrong. I think the left is afraid of us. Why am I so sure? Because the leaders of the left have become tyrants, and tyrants always fear the people they oppress. J. K. Rowling said it well, speaking through Albus Dumbledore in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

Voldemort himself created his worst enemy, just as tyrants everywhere do! Have you any idea how much tyrants fear the people they oppress? All of them realize that one day, amongst their many victims, there is sure to be one who rises against them and strikes back! Voldemort is no different! Always he was on the lookout for the one who would challenge him.

While I attended Indiana University, I had a professor named Mubarak who met Saddam Hussein. Talk about your six degrees of separation. Many years before the Gulf War, while working on the faculty of the Kuwait University, Mubarak attended an academic conference in Iraq. Saddam Hussein opened the conference with a speech and then went around to shake hands with each of the attendees. The one thing Professor Mubarak noticed when he was in the presence of Saddam Hussein was how nervous and frightened Saddam was. Saddam Hussein was always looking around the room, always on guard. He told the class that he realized that for Saddam Hussein, every waking moment must be one of fear. Saddam Hussein always had to wonder which of his subordinates was plotting to overthrow him or when the oppressed people of Iraq would rise against him. Saddam Hussein may have seemed all-powerful in Iraq.

Dictators do not conduct purges, create secret police, fill concentration camps, and institute censorship for the sadistic joy of oppressing people. They do all that because they are afraid of the people they oppress. The more a dictator oppresses, the more he has cause to fear his victims who rightly hate him, and the more he must oppress. He dares not ease up on the oppression.

The Leftists who control almost every institution in our country are no dictators like Saddam Hussein, but they wield power. They have totalitarian aspirations, and therefore, they fear the people they would tyrannize over. Contrary to what many conservatives assert, the leftists are not confident and secure. Confident and secure people do not fortify elections. Confident and secure rulers would not feel the need to build a wall around the capital building or to deploy the National Guard to protect them. They would not inflate the actions of an unruly mob on January 6 into a full-fledged insurrection. A President secure in his office would not make a speech demonizing half the population as “ultra MAGA” domestic terrorists against a backdrop reminiscent of a Nazi Party rally.

The Leftist elite is afraid of us. The elite has good reason to be. They have turned the greatest nation on Earth into a third-rate banana republic. They have proven themselves corrupt, incompetent, and authoritarian, and they know we have begun to see through them. The TEA Party was the first shot across the bow of the left and their conservative enablers. We told them we didn’t like the way they were ruining the country into the ground. We told them to leave us alone and stop imposing their values on us. We tried to be nice, but they only called us racists. The election of Donald Trump in 2016 was the second shot. We weren’t so nice, then. They called us Nazis and plotted to rig the election of 2020. They won’t like the next shot. I’m afraid we won’t be nice at all.

Obama Kids Revisited

Remember this video?

I wrote about it way back in September 2011. I still do not like the comparison made between Obama and Hitler. No American politician, either Obama, Hilary Clinton or Donald Trump is anything at all like Hitler. I also still think that having choirs of children singing the praises of a politician is more than a little creepy. It’s also odd that the same sort of people who didn’t have a problem with the Obama Cult are declaring that Trump is an evil dictator, just like Hitler. As far as I know, Trump has not had children singing about how wonderful he is, or artists depicting him as the Messiah, or celebrities pledging their unconditional allegiance to him. Perhaps this is projection? Maybe we are only safe from a would be dictator if he happens to be a Republican.

Anyway, I happened to see this video yesterday and I started to wonder whatever became of these children. They must be college age by now. Maybe some of them are attending Berkeley where they are participating in riots to drive away any conservative speaker who dares to show up. There might be one or two at Yale, screaming at professors who suggested that student might be able to choose their own Halloween costumes. They might be protesting against the systemic racism found at the University of Missouri. Perhaps they have skipped college altogether to attend “antifa” protests, fighting the threat of right-wing Fascism by beating up people and smashing store windows, in other words by acting like the Fascists did in Germany and Italy.

No contemporary American politician is anything like Hitler, but if a dictator ever does come to power in America, he won’t have any trouble finding recruits for his storm troopers from the sort of people who teach their children to sing hymns of praise to politicians.

Saint Patrick’s Day

Today is St. Patrick‘s day and I thought it might be appropriate to write about St. Patrick. So, who is St. Patrick and why does he get a day? Not very much is known for certain about his life. It is possible that his story has been confused with one Palladius, a missionary who became the first bishop of Ireland. Still, Patrick wrote a short autobiography called “The Declaration” or “The Confession” as part of a letter which seems to be genuine.

6a00d8341bf67c53ef0120a94a97a7970b-320wi — Get out snakes!

Patrick, or Patricius was a Roman who lived in Britain. He may have been born around 387 and lived until 460 or possibly 493, so he lived during the twilight of the Roman Empire in the West. At the age of 16 he was captured by raiders and enslaved. He worked as a shepherd in Ireland for about six years. He managed to escape and return to his home, but then he became a priest and returned to the land where he was a slave and worked to convert the pagans to Christianity. He seems to have been very successful during his lifetime, though there were many other missionaries in Ireland. He helped to organize the Church in Ireland and is supposed to have traveled to Rome to seek the Pope’s assistance in this endeavor.

According to legend, Patrick died on March 17, so that date has become his feast day. He has never been officially canonized by the Roman Catholic Church. He became known as a saint long before the modern procedure for canonization was developed. He is, obviously, the patron saint of Ireland, and also Nigeria, Montserrat, engineers, paralegals, and the dioceses of New York, Boston, and Melbourne.

There are many legends about St. Patrick. The most widely known is that he chased all the snakes out of Ireland, thus ruining the local ecology. Another is that he used the example of the three-leaved shamrock to illustrate the trinity.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day to all the Irish, and Irish at heart, out there!

Sorry about the green text. I couldn’t resist.

About Saint Patrick (carlarenee45.wordpress.com)
Who was Saint Patrick ? (thetemplarknight.com)
St Patrick’s Day (frstephensmuts.wordpress.com)
St Patrick: The real story (nzherald.co.nz)

Earth Day

I meant to write this yesterday, during Earth Day and I did start it, but I was busy and didn’t finish it until the next day.

From celebrating the Risen Lord we come now to a day to celebrate His creation, Earth Day. I am not a big fan of either Earth Day or the environmentalist movement for a number of reasons but one reason in particular that comes to mind, perhaps because Easter was two days ago, is that it seems to me that environmentalism is a sort of neo-pagan religion that worships the creation to the detriment of the Creator. I think that the Apostle Paul described our modern Greens fairly well when he wrote of the pagans of his own day.

21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.

24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25 They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen. (Romans 1:21-25)

You see the parallel? Just as the pagans of ancient times worshiped trees, stones, and idols so do the modern pagans reverence nature and the Earth. There were many creation myths among the ancients. As far as I know none of them had the world created ex nihilo by an omnipotent deity. The creation of the world generally seems to predate the gods, either accomplished by an older generation of gods or by the same process that created the gods. The creation of the human race is generally something of an afterthought on the part of the gods. Humans are not very important. In like manner, our modern pagans believed that the Earth created itself. The Earth evolved. There is no need for a Creator. Some of the most mystical New Age Greens may reverence Gaia, but Gaia is not a creator. Please don’t make the mistake of thinking that because these beliefs seem to resemble modern scientific theories on how the Earth developed that these beliefs are actually scientific. The environmentalists seek to use the mantle of science to advance their agenda. Their beliefs may be close to some scientific ideas but their methods of reasoning are not very scientific at all.

In Genesis, the creation of man is presented as the climax of God’s creative efforts. Human beings are creatures made in God’s own image and are set to rule over the Earth.

26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals,[a] and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

27 So God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.

28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”

29 Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. 30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so. (Gen 1:26-29)

Human beings are distinct from the other animals. Only the first human can name the animals.

15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”

18 The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”

19 Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. 20 So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky and all the wild animals.

But for Adam no suitable helper was found. 21 So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. 22 Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. (Gen 2:15-22)

Human beings are something special in God’s eyes.

Lord, our Lord,
    how majestic is your name in all the earth!

You have set your glory
    in the heavens.
2 Through the praise of children and infants
    you have established a stronghold against your enemies,
    to silence the foe and the avenger.
3 When I consider your heavens,
    the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
    which you have set in place,
4 what is mankind that you are mindful of them,
    human beings that you care for them?

5 You have made them a little lower than the angels
    and crowned them with glory and honor.
6 You made them rulers over the works of your hands;
    you put everything under their feet:
7 all flocks and herds,
    and the animals of the wild,
8 the birds in the sky,
    and the fish in the sea,
    all that swim the paths of the seas. (Psalms 8:1-8)

Even many pagans understood that there was something special about humanity. The Athenian dramatist Sophocles wrote in his play Antigone;

Numberless are the world’s wonders, but none
More wonderful than man; the storm-gray sea
Yields to his prows, the huge crests bear him high;
Earth, holy and inexhaustible, is graven
With shining furrows where his plows have gone
Year after year, the timeless labor of stallions.
The light-boned birds and beasts that cling to cover,
The lithe fish lighting their reaches of dim water,
All are taken, tamed in the net of his mind;
The lion on the hill, the wild horse windy-maned,
Resign to him; and his blunt yoke has broken
The sultry shoulders of the mountain bull.
Words also, and thought as rapid as air,
He fashions to his good use; statecraft is his
And his the skill that deflects the arrows of snow,
The spears of winter rain: from every wind
He has made himself secure – from all but one:
In the late wind of death he cannot stand.

The modern pagans, by contrast, don’t think that man is anything special at all. At best, we are just another animal. As Ingrid Newkirk of PETA has said;

Animal liberationists do not separate out the human animal, so there is no rational basis for saying that a human being has special rights. A rat is a pig is a dog is a boy. They are all mammals

At worst, human beings are vermin. We pollute the Earth, change the climate, drive numerous species to extinction. We are a cancer and a plague on the Earth. The fewer of us there are, the better.

It seems to me, then, that there is a choice between serving the Earth, as a modern pagan, or serving the Creator of the Earth as a Christian. You cannot do both. This does not mean, of course, that a Christian should deliberately pollute or damage the environment. If God has placed the human race over the Earth, then we are commanded to be good stewards and use the resources that God has given us with care and foresight. Part of being a good steward over creation is preserving the natural world and not wantonly destroying it. We must not worship the Earth, however, or subordinate the needs of our fellow human beings to any other needs. As Joshua might have put it, Choose for yourself this day whom you will serve, but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.

Earth Day – High Holy Day of Paganism (theconservativecitizen.com)
A Christian ‘Earth Day’ celebration (apostlesevergreen.org)
The Religion of Green (seeker401.wordpress.com)
America’s Fall: The Modern-Day Roman Empire (wchildblog.com)

Boycotting Mozilla

By now, just about everyone who might be reading this post knows something of what has going on with Mozilla and its eleven day CEO Brendan Eich. For the heinous crime of donating $1000 in support of California’s anti-gay marriage Proposition 8, a position held by none other than then Senator Barack Obama. For this thought crime, Mr. Eich has been obliged to leave.

This isn’t about gay marriage. It isn’t really about freedom of expression, or the right to donate to political causes without fear of retribution. This is about the most fundamental right of all , the right to be left alone to live our lives as we see fit.

There is a class of professional activists; the hyper sensitive, the perpetually aggrieved, the would be do-gooders and reformers, for whom everything is subordinate to the glorious cause. For these people, life is a Manichean struggle of ultimate good and evil. No one can be neutral or indifferent to the struggle. If you are not with them, you are against them and must be destroyed by any means necessary. No decision or action can be strictly personal. Everything is political. In Mr. Eich’s case, the fact that he was a co founder of Mozilla and had invented JavaScript was irrelevant. He had opposed the cause and could not be tolerated. Remember that notorious video that British environmentalists made.

Notice that the people who were blown up were not actually opposed to the Green agenda. Their crime was simply that they were not sufficiently enthusiastic. I don’t want to live in that kind of world. I don’t want to boycott Mozilla or stop using Firefox. I don’t want to make decisions on what I buy or use based on the political ideas of the providers. I would rather just live my life and express my opinions and let everyone else alone. If there are differences of opinions, I would rather discuss or debate the matter and not have to worry about being punished for taking the wrong side, or punishing others for disagreeing with me. It would seem, however, that those of us who want to be left alone and to leave others alone are not going to be allowed to do that. Since this is the world the busybodies and the bullies seem to want, I guess we will just have to push back until they go away.

I do not know if the people who run Mozilla are cowards who give in to the least pressure, from the right sort of people, or if they can be included among the bullies. It really doesn’t matter. They have shown that they are on the side against liberty and so do not deserve any support from me. I will uninstall Firefox.

Mozilla CEO Resigns Amid Criticism, Boycott Over Donation Supporting Biblical Marriage (christiannews.net)
Mozilla CEO Resigns After Anti-Gay Marriage Donations Cause Backlash (goldenageofgaia.com)
Gay Conservatives Agree: The Gangster-Style Ouster Of Mozilla CEO By Rabid Gay Activists Isn’t A Gay Rights Issue At All (mikesright.wordpress.com)
Mozilla registers swell of negative feedback following Eich ouster (cactusjaq.wordpress.com) Good.
FAQ on CEO Resignation (mozilla.org) Trying to please both sides. If they do not come out in defense of freedom, I will not use their products.

Agent Richard Ryder

I must be one of the luckiest people in the world. Every time I am short of money, I get offers from all over the world from people eager to share their wealth with me, if only I will forward them my contact information and perhaps a small fee to get things rolling. I have had offers from Nigeria, Libya, and even Portugal. Now I have received information about some money that is waiting for me at an international airport.

Attn: Valuable Customer,

We wish to inform you that the Agent conveying the consignment box valued the
sum of ($4.7M US) misplaced your info on transmit and he is currently stranded
right at your international airport with your consignment. We required you
reconfirm the following info, so he can complete the trip contained your
payment fund today.

Full Name: ============
Current Address: ==============
Mobile No.:===================
Name of Your Nearest
Airport:==============
A Copy of Your Passport/Drivers License,(If possible):==========

Please do make contact with the agent with the email below with the info
required. Contact Person: Richard RYDER
E-mail : (deplomatic.richryder0@hotmail.com)

He is waiting to hear from you today with the information.
NOTE: The agent does not know that the whot of the box is $4.7Million USD and
on no circumstances should you let him know about what it contains The
consignments was moved from here as a family treasures, so never allow him to
open it, Please make sure you do not disclose body of this letter to him so
that he won’t be able to know what is in the box.

Yours sincerely
Mr. Bernard Edward,
Email me at mr.bernardedward@yahoo.com

I hope that airport isn’t too far away. I would hate to have to drive too far to get my money.

Saint Patrick’s Day

Happy St. Patrick’s Day to all the Irish, and Irish at heart, out there!

Sorry about the green text. I couldn’t resist.

About Saint Patrick (carlarenee45.wordpress.com)
Who was Saint Patrick ? (thetemplarknight.com)
St Patrick’s Day (frstephensmuts.wordpress.com)
St Patrick: The real story (nzherald.co.nz)

Computer Down

I haven’t been able to write anything for the past week and a half because my computer hasn’t been working. Whenever I turned it on, it would refuse to start windows, instead showing a blue screen and the message, “Please wait”. I waited for over two hours but nothing would happen. I took it to a local computer store to be looked at, but they had along backlog of repair jobs so they were not even able to run any diagnostics on my computer until yesterday. There wasn’t anything seriously wrong and I finally got it back today. Too bad I feel too tired to write anything just now.

It has been more of an inconvenience not being able to blog, than I thought it would and I am glad I will be able to resume.

Redrawn Map

I have been having fun with the e-mails that I have been receiving from the Democrats for quite a long time now, but fairness demands that I also have some fun with the e-mails that conservative groups send me, at least when they descend into silliness or apocalyptic paranoia. Such is the case with this one I got from Townhall.com.

Dear Reader,

The America you know and love could look completely different in a matter of weeks.

Under a plan circulating the D.C. corridor right now, up to 16 states are at risk to be terminated due to epic fiscal mismanagement.

These states would simply be wiped from existence and merged into their neighbors.

We’ve even seen the redrawn map of the U.S. and it’s nothing less than terrifying.

California may be forced to become a part of Mexico without any state strong enough to absorb it!

Last week Treasury Secretary Jack Lew even took the time to urge congressional leaders to take action before events unfold that could lead to this national tragedy.

But it may already be too late.

To see the redrawn map of the U.S. and learn if your state is targeted for potential termination, it’s essential that you watch this short video we’ve produced.

It could be the slight head start that saves your entire future.

View it here, for free, right now.

This is an advertisement for Wall Street Daily, some sort of financial newsletter that seems to cater to survivalists and doomsday preppers. The link leads to a video of a fake news report of the federal government defaulting on its debts. I didn’t have the patience to watch it all the way through so I haven’t seen the redrawn map. I think Indiana would be relatively safe since our fiscal situation is strong thanks to former governor Mitch Daniels. I hope they don’t add Kentucky or Illinois to our state. I don’t want them. I also have no objections at all to giving California back to Mexico. The nuts and the crazies have long since taken control of that state and run it into the ground. Let the Mexicans straighten them out.

Gun Free Zones for Politicians

Some smart-aleck petitioned the White House to eliminate armed guards for politicians, perhaps on the grounds that what is good enough for the little people is good enough for our leaders.

Gun Free Zones are supposed to protect our children, and some politicians wish to strip us of our right to keep and bear arms. Those same politicians and their families are currently under the protection of armed Secret Service agents. If Gun Free Zones are sufficient protection for our children, then Gun Free Zones should be good enough for politicians.

If gun free zones really deter people from committing violence with guns, then we could save a lot of taxpayer money by just putting up gun free zone signs all about the White House, right? The White House doesn’t agree with that reasoning.

Thanks for your petition.

We live in a world where our elected leaders and representatives are subject to serious, persistent, and credible threats on a daily basis. Even those who are mere candidates in a national election become symbols of our country, which makes them potential targets for those seeking to do harm to the United States and its interests. In 1901, after the third assassination of a sitting President, Congress mandated that the President receive full-time protection, and that law is still in effect today. Because of it, those who are the subject of ongoing threats must receive the necessary and appropriate protection.

At the same time, all of us deserve to live in safer communities, which is why we need to take responsible, commonsense steps to reduce gun violence, even while respecting individual freedom. And let’s be clear: President Obama believes that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right to bear arms. You can see him talk about that in a previous petition response:

But the common-sense steps the President has proposed don’t infringe in any way on our Second Amendment rights. We ought to be able to keep weapons of war off the streets. We ought to close the loopholes in the background check system that make it too easy for criminals and other dangerous people to buy guns — an idea that has the support of 90 percent of people in the United States.

That’s why the President and an overwhelming majority of Americans are calling on Congress to pass gun safety legislation that closes loopholes in the background check system and makes gun trafficking a federal crime.

A minority in the Senate is blocking this common-sense legislation to reduce gun violence, but President Obama is already taking action to protect our kids with executive actions. He is taking the steps available to him as President to strengthen the existing background check system, give law enforcement officials more tools to prevent gun violence, end the freeze on gun violence research, make schools safer, and improve access to mental health care.

I am not sure the person tasked with responding to the petition quite gets the point. The people in charge of the President’s security have a

Please start shooting here. No one will stop you.

good idea what works to keep him safe and what does not work. They must know perfectly well that declaring the White House a gun free

zone and disarming his Secret Service detail would be a disaster. Why would anyone think that declaring a place a gun free zone would work anywhere else? Isn’t that as good as telling a criminal or lunatic that he is not likely to run into much resistance?

More to the point, are any of the policies that the President proposes likely to be effective at reducing crime? There doesn’t seem to be a link between stronger gun control laws and reduced crime. Many of the jurisdictions with the strictest gun control laws seem to have the most gun crimes. On the other hand, the general liberalization of gun laws over the last decade or so doesn’t seem to have increased the crime rate. I am not sure I understand the president’s urgency on this issue, given that violent crime rates have been dropping for the last two decades. Maybe it beats talking about the economy or the mess in the Middle East.

Hey, this is my 1000th post. I didn’t think I could keep this blog going for so long.

EDITORIAL: White House rejects ‘gun-free’ zone petition for Obama (VIDEO) (guns.com)
White House On Idea For Gun-Free Zone Around Obama: No Way! (personalliberty.com)
White House rejects idea of ‘gun-free zone’ around Obama (rt.com)
WH: Politicians Need Guns–But You Don’t (breitbart.com)

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