A blog in defense of western civilization by Roger Graf
Author: RogerG
I am a retired teacher and coach, Social Science Department chairman, community college instructor in Physical and Human Geography. I have attended 4 colleges with relevant degrees and certificates in History, Religious Studies/Philosophy, Education, and Planning and Community Development. I am also a 3rd generation native Californian, now refugee living in northwest Montana.
Adam Levine performs with Maroon 5 during the halftime show at Super Bowl LIII at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta on Feb. 3, 2019. (Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)Lady Gaga in Super Bowl halftime show, 2017. (PHOTOGRAPH BY ANTHONY BEHAR / SIPA USA VIA AP IMAGES)
Is it just me or have you noticed that the Super Bowl has become more than a championship game and has evolved into an over-hyped vulgarity having more in common with a bacchanalia like the reality of today’s Mardi Gras? In addition, one of this year’s entrants is the team from San Francisco, a place poisoned by its embrace of a counter-culture – one that is also the dominant mental software of the commanding heights of our national culture (Hollywood, academia, cosmopolitan America, etc.). So, we’ll have brought together in Hard Rock Stadium the orgy and the team representative of the city who embodies the fiercest assault on our traditions.
I’ve given this much thought: How could I allow my social views to influence my sports loyalties? I was a 49er fan since the onset of my memory. Slowly, in my later years, I began to notice the disconnect between my team loyalties and the city that has come to represent much that is seriously wrong in our society. Say “San Francisco” and you’ll bring to mind social and moral dysfunction, more so than any other place. I can’t get past this realization.
Homeless encampment, San Francisco, Ca.Vagina costumes in the Bay to Breakers road race, 2015.
It’s about the city that the team represents; it’s not about the team’s accomplishments or its players and organization. In my view, given the season’s worth of work, they should be the odds-on favorite. Congratulations to them for a job well done. Still, the city has become such an affront to decency that it is impossible to carry on as a fan.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), speaks about the the Senate Impeachment trial at the Capitol, January 16, 2020, in Washington, DC. (Photo by OLIVIER DOULIERY/AFP)
Axios quotes Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer as tweeting, “Trials have witnesses and documents. Cover-ups don’t.” Yes, they do, Chuck, if the prosecution brings them as part of their charges, and they must be disclosed. It’s called “discovery”: the 6th Amendment right of the accused “to be confronted with the witnesses against him”. Shoddy charges leads to quick dismissal. A judge would discard the charges if prosecutors approached the bench with a demand to start the trial on the basis of unknown and thus undisclosed witnesses and documents because the current batch is a joke.
Chuck, you must be admitting that your charges are empty. Result: “Case dismissed!”
A proper legal response would be to take the embarrassing things back and continue your years-long inquisition to find something that will sell, anything. But from here on, though, a Congressional session (2 years) will be devoted to a little bit of legislation and a lot of impeachment.
Congressional public approval is in the toilet. After this becomes a permanent agenda item, Congress’s positives will make their way to the sewage treatment plant.
Please read James Pethokoukis’spiece on the AEI website, “Let’s stop pretending that Bernie Sanders wants to duplicate Scandinavia”.
Bernie’s list of freebies – for instance, free college, daycare, and healthcare – are said to be a reflection of his “socialism”. Oh no, not the meany kind (USSR, etc.) he says, but the style of socialism found in – wait for it – Scandinavia. Bernie is stuck in a “socialism” in Scandinavia that was buried by Scandinavians in the 1990’s. He’s trying to resurrect it long after the Scandinavians ran away from it. He’s like Mary Shelley’s Dr. Frankenstein in his feverish attempts to reanimate the monster.
Bernie’s Lazarus syndrome willfully ignores the fact that Scandinavia isn’t about eating the rich, as is the appetite of those on the Democrat debate stage. The tax bite on the rich is lower in many ways than our own. The operating principle is simple: if you want a government service, you pay for it. As a result, most of the benefits go to the middle class because most of the tax burden is on the middle class.
In other words, Bernie, they have no freebies! So, Bernie, stop selling the snake oil … and cease auditioning for the lead role in the movie remake.
Virginia Governor Ralph Northam speaks to gun control activists at a rally in Richmond, Va., July 9, 2019.The French Revolution’s Committee of Public Safety in 1793. It was the central governing agency for enforcing the Revolution’s decrees.
The 2018 elections swept into power a revolutionary government in the Commonwealth of Virginia. It’s revolutionary in its leaps away from the customary understanding on highly polarizing issues such as gun rights and abortion. These issues go to the heart of what it means to be a human being and a citizen’s relationship to the state. Like the French Revolution, this will be a revolution from the center, Raleigh being like Paris of 1789.
The Paris mob in 1789.
In 1793, the Reign of Terror, headquartered in Paris, leaped out into the provinces in the Vendée, much of northwestern France, the region around Lyon, etc. The Terror with its revolutionary tribunals, mass executions, and vicious assaults on the Church ignited a popular rvolt against the Revolution’s scheme of radical utopia. Suppression in the provinces took the form of slaughter and bloody class warfare. France experienced the tragedy of its own blue/red divide.
The blue/red divide may be an overused cliché to some extent but it is also very alive in Virginia. The northern urban centers and suburban districts in the shadow of DC – and heavily “blue” – have taken over the state government with the zeal to impose a whole cluster of new gun control measures on the nine-tenths of the state not so inclined. 91 of 95 counties, 13 of 38 independent cities (treated like counties), and 24 towns have already declared themselves to be Second Amendment sanctuaries in opposition to what they consider the revolution’s sweeping edicts.
Look at all the Virginia jurisdictions in blue who passed Second Amendment Sanctuary resolutions.
How far will comrade Ralph Northam go to impose the revolution’s decrees? Maybe somewhat stunned by the opposition Northam said on Dec. 11, “If we have constitutional laws on the books and law enforcement officers are not enforcing those laws on the books then there are going to be some consequences but I’ll cross that bridge if and when we get to it.”
Virginia Attorney General Mark R. Herring in May 2019.
Virginia’s commissar Attorney General, Mark Herring, leveled an even more direct threat to the opposition districts when he declared on Dec. 20 that “they [the gun-control laws] will be enforced, and they will be followed”. Attention then shifted to the Virginia National Guard as the newly minted Army of the Revolution. Maj. Gen. Timothy P. Williams, the Adjutant General of Virginia, issued an equivocal response when questioned about the use of his troops to put down the widespread rebellion. How could he be otherwise? Nothing has happened as of yet.
Will the Army, though, allow themselves to be used as the enforcers of highly detested laws? The Army of the Revolution would be put in an awkward position when the local sheriff, DA, or jury refuses to arrest, try, or convict a parent for allowing their 17-year-old daughter access to a gun to defend herself against a couple meth-heads. Massive and passive resistance may render the revolutionaries’ dream of a gun-free utopia mute. Or will it? If history is any guide, secular political utopias have the nasty habit of becoming coercive, very coercive.
Mass shootings of anti-Revolution rebels at Nantes in 1793 in a sketch from the time.
The blue/red divide is nothing new. And it seems that our modern revolutions always have a “blue” cast in their attempt to overturn a deeply-rooted and traditional ethos. Welcome to Virginia’s historical rhyming with late 18th-century France. Will it be as traumatic? I hope not.
Compare the receptions received by Pres. Trump at a Washington Nationals World Series game in Washington, DC, on Oct. 28, 2019, and the college football national championship game in New Orleans between LSU and Clemson on Jan. 13, 2020, about 10 weeks later. Watch the 2 videos for the night-and-day reactions. He gets booed and is subjected to chants of “lock him up” in DC while he experienced sustained cheers and applause from a mostly Louisiana and South Carolina – hotbeds of Red America – crowd in New Orleans.
Washington, DC, Oct. 28, 2019
New Orleans, La., Jan. 13, 2020
Let’s dispense with the nonsense that there is no severe politico-cultural divide in America. It exists, and boy does it exist! I attribute the phenomena to a resurgence of a semi-violent, bombastic radical left alongside the rise of a provocateur on the right, Trump. Make no mistake about it, though, this unhinged left had been around since the 1960’s and has wormed its way into the corporate boardroom, faculty lounges, all avenues of our media, academia, and is resplendent in the training of our teachers and our kids’ curriculum. Few of our kids’ schools escape its tentacles. The cities and coasts are the nests for this myopic and revolutionary collectivism, and can be dubbed “blue” America.
Outside the blue bubbles of the cities and the coasts resides the vast stretches of Red America. Do our self-anointed cultural betters in their urban blue bubbles know how out-of-step they are in relation to the rest of the country? Red America certainly knows about them since the “blues” control the cultural commanding heights. If the “blues” know about their estrangement, I don’t think that they care.
No, I didn’t get the title wrong. From my observations of the Titans/Ravens showdown yesterday – granted, I’m no expert – it looked like the Titans stole the Ravens identity. They were as physical as the Ray Lewis Ravens of yesteryear. It showed in many ways.
Way #1: 0 for 3 in 4th down conversions (Was it 0-for-3 or 0-for-4?). That stat was a proxy for the Titan “D” line consistently stuffing the run and refusing to be blown off the line. Of course, it’s easier to do if your offense is constantly chewing 7-8 minutes of the clock at a time. Plenty of time for the “D” folks to rest, and the Ravens’ defense to tire from all the Henry pounding.
Way #2: 2nd-and-4 beats 2nd-and-8 anytime. Wow, Derrick Henry is a pure phenom. Cutback blocking, timely cuts, and monster size and speed creates havoc. The Titans forced the Ravens to the line of scrimmage leaving spot throws deep downfield. In that way, a journeyman like the Titans’ Ryan Tannehill would seem like an all-pro.
The Titans’ Derrick Henry as he breaks the line for 60-yard scamper.
Way #3: Don’t rest your scatback quarterback in week 17. Such quarterbacks get off-stride and lose their rhythm and spontaneity after 3 weeks of … not much. In the game, Lamar Jackson was continually off-target. His on-the-cuff decisions were poor and lacked instantaneous recognition. These are essential attributes for an offense defined by all things Jackson.
Way #4: Was it me or did it seem like the Ravens were much more frequently on the ground with injury timeouts? The Titans hit harder and more consistently throughout the game. Mike Vrabel and staff had their guys ready. Indeed, what was to come appeared the week before when they dismantled the Patriots.
Just some passing thoughts on the game. What do you think?
Neil Peart of Rush, July 2010 (Paul Warner/WireImage)Neil Peart posed at his drum kit in the Public Auditorium in Cleveland, Ohio on 17th December 1977. (Photo by Fin Costello/Redferns)
Neil Peart, master drummer for Rush, died of brain cancer earlier this week. May he rest in peace and God’s comfort for his family, friends, and devoted fans.
He was my age, born in 1952. He was 14 days my junior. In many ways, in his early lyrics, he reflected the fascinations of young and preternaturally rebellious teenage boys, alone and bookish and enthralled by individualism. To no surprise, to many teenage boys who were precociously literate in a facile sense, the writings of Ayn Rand would captivate them. Her libertarianism made an impression on them, and maybe myself to a degree during my coming-of-age years. After all, traditions and the standards that derive from traditions can seem like unnecessary and damaging social barnacles to a young and undeveloped mind.
Ayn Rand
It’s easy to drift into atheism or any of the iconoclastic faiths, finding the only one you knew the best, the one you grew up with, as flawed.
Then maturity sets in. Life’s experiences marinate your thoughts and a person might come to realize what G.K. Chesterton noticed a century before when he saw such minds “in the clean and well-lit prison of one idea” (from his book “Orthodoxy”). Traditions and traditional faith, and their moral and social norms, may have a sounder basis than a young and energetic mind can grasp. Peart came to understand this fact when he seemed to reject Randianism and even pure libertarianism when he said in a 2012 Rolling Stone interview:
“So as you go through past, your twenties, your idealism is going to be disappointed many many times. And so, I’ve brought my view and also – I’ve just realized this – Libertarianism as I understood it was very good and pure and we’re all going to be successful and generous to the less fortunate and it was, to me, not dark or cynical. But then I soon saw, of course, the way that it gets twisted by the flaws of humanity. And that’s when I evolve now into . . . a bleeding heart Libertarian. That’ll do.”
In many ways, Neil Peart represents a world and a time that I could easily recognize. It was a time of the breezy rejection of the old and the juvenile understanding that nothing exists beyond the self.
The kids from “Stranger Things”.
Such a mindset may make the individual a god, but at least it doesn’t wallow in the Sanders/Warren socialism, the collectivism of same, and the similarly self-identified cliques who are united by nothing more than the victimhood of their self-proclaimed oppression. If Randianism or libertarianism gets a young person to rebuff the nonsense, something good may come of it.
Below are the lyrics and live performance of their song “Anthem”, taken from an Ayn Rand novella, “Anthem”. You’ll need the lyrics to get the point.
Anthem
Know your place in life is where you want to be
Don’t let them tell you that you owe it all to me
Keep on looking forward, no use in looking ’round
Hold your head above the crowd and they won’t bring you down
Anthem of the heart and anthem of the mind
A funeral dirge for eyes gone blind
We marvel after those who sought
The wonders in the world, wonders in the world
Wonders in the world they wrought
Live for yourself
There’s no one else more worth living for
Begging hands and bleeding hearts
Will only cry out for more
Anthem of the heart and anthem of the mind
A funeral dirge for eyes gone blind
We marvel after those who sought
The wonders in the world, wonders in the world
Wonders in the world they wrought
Well, I know they’ve always told you
Selfishness was wrong
Yet it was for me, not you
I came to write this song
Anthem of the heart and anthem of the mind
A funeral dirge for eyes gone blind
We marvel after those who sought
The wonders in the world, wonders in the world
Wonders in the world they wrought, wrought, wrought
Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: N PEART / A LIFESON / G LEE
Not to see Clint Eastwood’s latest film “Richard Jewell” is to engage in citizenship malpractice.
The real Richard A. Jewell, 1997. (photo: Greg Gibson/Associated Press, 1997)
Every citizen should see Eastwood’s portrayal of how well-meaning people in powerful government positions, allied to rambunctious reporters, can be so awfully wrong and mature into a malevolent force without even knowing it. It’s how prosecutors can pursue an individual, wrongfully convict the person, pursue harsh sentencing, and resist any effort to set the record straight. It’s how investigations are pursued on the flimsiest of “probable cause” and can morph into other investigations because it is heartily believed that the guy must have committed some crime somewhere, somehow. Does this remind you of the events leading to the current impeachment melee?
A notion gets stuck in the craw of government officials – call it a “profile”, an expectation about the kind of person who commit these sinful acts – and persists until action is taken to the detriment of all. Richard Jewell was slapped by the powers-that-be as symptomatic of the “hero syndrome” (creating a situation or crime to become a hero). The media’s and the FBI’s “rush to judgment” led to Jewell’s public humiliation as the Olympic Park bomber in 1996 – only 7 years later to find the real culprit, Eric Rudolph.
Eric Robert Rudolph being escorted from the Cherokee County Jail for a hearing in federal court in 2003 after being on the run for five years.
False ideas creep into the heads of mighty people in a burgeoning and energetic federal government. And if these people have guns, watch out! It’s how we can have a Ruby Ridge (1992). It’s how we can experience a Waco (assault on David Koresh’s compound, 1993). It’s how we can have serial investigations of a presidential candidate as a “Russian mole”, and later to try to pin something else on him when the first effort failed in the belief that he’s still corrupt to the core.
The Branch Davidian compound, Waco, Tx., Feb.28, 1993.
There’s something in the government ether from the 1990’s to the present that is so insidious. No, it’s not a “deep state”. It’s something endemic – or generic – to government. The Founders’ idea of government as a necessary evil is as true today as it ever was. It’s a lesson we had better repeatedly teach ourselves and our young.
“Speaking truth to power” became a cliché by people wearing fake vaginas on their heads the day after Trump’s inauguration in January 2017. Well, take a look at “speaking truth to power”, the culturally powerful, or the culturally privileged – aka, Hollywood – by Golden Globe host, Ricky Gervais, last night. The line about most of those folks, all prettied up in tuxes and gowns, being less educated than Greta Thunberg rings oh-so-true. Take that Tom Hanks and Leonardo DiCaprio.
I was stunned and couldn’t believe my eyes and ears. The whole monologue was great, but the spicy parts occurred in the last couple of minutes. It was far better than the speeches by the cranial vacuum-tubed luminaries. Enjoy.
I know, I know, it’s Christmas eve but I couldn’t resist commenting on the latest impeachment fracas. Pelosi is holding impeachment hostage by refusing to deliver the articles of impeachment to the Senate. Like the sword of Damocles, now in the hands of Pelosi, Trump will face an assembly line of impeachment articles as she demands more witnesses and documents for further expeditions into all things Trump before she turns over the already-approved articles to the Senate. But she says that she is a good Catholic, hates no one, and prays for the target of her political jihad. Really, how good of a Catholic is she? Is this Christ-like behavior?
One has to wonder. Is it Christian to endlessly hound a citizen by placing them under the perpetual gaze of inquisitors? Is it Christian for one house of Congress to step outside its legal role of investigating possible wrongdoing and demand the other house, acting as jurors, step outside its role to do what the first house refused to do, such as produce the information that it chose not to provide as part of its duty? Trump is no angel, and neither are Pelosi, Schumer, and the Resistance.
Is it Christian for her to proudly announce her Christian bonafides as she soils the very doctrines of her faith? Under the euphemism “right to choose”, she crowed in 2018 that “I’m a rabid supporter of a woman’s right to choose …” Rabid indeed! Earlier this year, rather than condemn Ralph Northam’s (D, governor of Va.) support of a live-birth abortion bill in the Virginia legislature and his description of it, she dodged the question when asked. Not even the killing of a newborn can draw the ire of this allegedly “sincere” Catholic.
In addition, she has persistently opposed efforts to protect viable babies in the womb and those born alive in the course of an abortion. She is absolutely grotesque when it comes to the Christian responsibility to protect life.
Former Vice President Joe Biden was rejected for Holy Communion by a priest in South Carolina, Oct. 2019
It doesn’t stop there. In that space where some assertions of gay rights conflict with religious freedom strides the hubristic Nancy Pelosi. Religious freedom must give way, according to her holiness Pelosi. Her House-passed Equality Act would strip protections for denominations with Bible-based views on sexuality and family, particularly if their Christian calling carries them beyond the sanctuary into running orphanages, hospitals, counseling services, schools, and wherever human need lies. Pelosi wants to essentially rewrite millennia-old Christian doctrine to fit her social views. Where’s the Christianity in this?
Here Polish World War II war orphans are being cared for at a Catholic orphange after the War in 1946.
This season to honor the birth of Christ is saddled with the preachiness of a pagan-Christian. Yes, it’s an oxymoron and also a reality in today’s morally-confused Democratic Party. I find it hard to take seriously Pelosi’s attempt to wrap herself in the garb of the Church. Does the phrase “false prophet” remind you of anyone?
