Monthly Archives: June 2011

Is it time for a real marriage contract?

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My thoughts here started with the comment from Alte. She commented

Yeah, I don’t care either. Notice I have not been reporting on it. It’s all irrelevant. Legal marriage is totally and permanently dead. Over. Done for. The RCC needs to stop defending it, and start boycotting it.

Take a stand on something, Mother Church.

The legalization of gay marriage will lead to the church being persecuted. Brendan described this well.

Of course, it will mean marginalization of anyone who doesn’t agree with homosexual behavior, for moral or other reasons. That’s also inevitable, as religious institutions are increasingly marginalized by the elite, culture-producing class. Soon, people holding private opinions against the morality of homosexual behavior will be treated as racists are treated today — basically as social lepers. A lot, and I mean a LOT, of persecution is coming for Christians who believe homosexual activity is sinful, at least in the broad, popular, elite-produced culture (not in the Christian enclaves). But that, too, was inevitable. The culture has moved decisively in favor of sexual immorality of every kind — which of course is going to place it on a collision course with Christianity.

In summary, the whole culture is down the rabbit hole when it comes to sexual morality. The gay piece is a very small part of that puzzle. The rest of it is so far gone as to be unrecoverable in any recognizable sense, and the staunch opposition to gay marriage is really motivated, to a large degree, by the frustrations with the previous cultural losses concerning straight folks, which are, of course, far more numerically impactful in terms of the decline of sexual mores in the US than what gays and lesbians are doing.

So yeah, I don’t care much. I don’t think gay marriage is “marriage”, the way I understand it. But I don’t think the culture supports any Christian definition of anything relating to sex and marriage any longer anyway

via The Empire State Goes Gay.

This is already happening in Canada.

My question, is what should the church do? How should the church advise their young people? The older people who come into the church single? Those who divorce?

My understanding on divorce is less hard core than the traditional Catholics (there is no divorce, but legal separation). I accept divorce for two reasons: adultery and abandonment with the children staying with the party harmed, unless it is plainly obvious that that person is an unfit parent.

So, if you follow your lusts and cheat, you lose the family. If you abandon them, you lose the family. You are shunned.

But this is not how the law works. The law — and all the social apparatus that the state has, is based on two ideologies

  1. The best interests of the child.
  2. The avoidance of (male) (perceived) violence.

In practice, particularly in the US and UK, the laws favour women. If a woman cheats, she will keep her family, her income and her children. She will just lose the husband she is betraying anyway. This situation has led both Alte and Brendan to say that marraige is dead in our society.

What to do? I do have some ideas…

  1. Have rules around Godly courting and enforce them. The simple rule here is you don’t let the courting couple be alone until they are married, therefore enforcing a ‘hands outside clothes and away from the zones’ rule. This means that the church has to commit to chaperonage.
  2. Encourage early marriage, and therefore early financial independence for men. With the exception of the scholars and professional trades (medicine and theology: the law is for Whigs, and the first Whig was the Devil) young men should be apprenticed into family business and encouraged to get journeyman status by their early 20s, and marry in their late 20s. Women should have a training in a practical art (teachers college and nursing school) or a trade (with the exception of the artistic, who may, in wealthy families, do a practical arts degree) and marry around the age of 21 or 22. That means there will be about a four or five year age gap.
  3. Measure divorce. Divide it into three groups: adultery, abandonment and rebellion (or divorce for any other reason). Make a divorce an event of shame for the church, who should have encouraged the couple to stay together.
  4. Keep the state away. Refuse state funding, and state tax exemptions. Refuse to report events. Refuse to engage with the family court and child support bureacracy.
  5. Encourage repentance and then remarriage. In the event of a man or woman suffering a divorce, get a person of the same gender to (a) make them accountable for remaining celibate (b) examine and correct behaviour that led to the marraige falling apart (including not being assertive enough for the man) and then to remarry, particularly if they have difficulties remaining continent as a single person. Again Keep the courts out of it. The divorce should be breifly mentioned in church and the death of the marraige mourned for. This should be shameful for the person remaining, and for the whole congregation. Dalrocks idea of a sign is important.
  6. Accept singleness. Some people just aren’t interested. Some are gay, and struggle but accept a celibate lifestyle. And some become widows or divorced and don’t want to date, being content to be alone. Let them. There is no need to be married.

And finally, let the rest of society live by their standards. We can demand Godly standards within the house of God, but outside… we need to associate with our neighbours.

But not let our children marry, except among the fellowship of congregations that follow these or similar rules.

UPDATE.

Will says that I should link to Dalrock;s post on measuring divorce. He’s right, so I have.

 

Mobs suck. Rule by Mobs sucks more.

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This morning the news is full of riots in Greece, and suicide bombing in Kabul. The are demonstrations, becoming violent, in Cairo.

I am not going to call the mob demonic, but I agree with Ann Coulter when she said this:

Liberals despise the rule of law because it interferes with their ability to rule by mob. They love to portray themselves as the weak taking on the powerful. But it is the least powerful who suffer the most once the rule of law is gone. (Dominique Strauss-Kahn is about to discover that the most defenseless, penniless immigrant has the same legal rights as he, in an American court.)

Liberals’ relentless attack on the judicial system is yet another example of their Jacobin lunacy in opposition to calm order. You will note that they never ask: Who did what in this case? All they want to know is which class of people are on trial. Social justice is the only justice that interests the Left because it’s the only justice that can be delivered by the political agitation of a mob.

Today’s lectionary contains Jesus’ condemnation. This year, as I read it, I foound myself in sympathy with Pilate and Herod. The two men were by no means holy. They had been actively against any expansion of Judaism.  In fact, on most issues, the Pharasees had the right belief and the right actions.

But Jesus condemnation had nothing to do with either Mosaic or Roman Justice. It was a pure, Jacobean, power play, It was pandering to the mob.

Luke 23

8Then they all shouted out together, “Away with this fellow! Release Barabbas for us!” 19This was a man who had been put in prison for an insurrection that had taken place in the city, and for murder. 20Pilate, wanting to release Jesus, addressed them again; 21but they kept shouting, “Crucify, crucify him!” 22A third time he said to them, “Why, what evil has he done? I have found in him no ground for the sentence of death; I will therefore have him flogged and then release him.” 23But they kept urgently demanding with loud shouts that he should be crucified; and their voices prevailed. 24So Pilate gave his verdict that their demand should be granted. 25He released the man they asked for, the one who had been put in prison for insurrection and murder, and he handed Jesus over as they wished.

via Daily Lectionary Readings — Devotions and Readings — Mission and Ministry — GAMC.

What we have had, over the last 50 years, is a belief in an old old lie, vox populi, vox dei. (the voice of the people is the voice of the gods). The Tribunate used the mob from the time of the Gracchi.  But letting the wishes of the mob rule is a recipe for disaster. Was in Roman times. Was in Weimar Germany. Is now.

As an example, Alte and Welmer posted yesterday Thomas Sowell arguing that socail welfare would destroy black families. Back in the 1980s. Her analysis of this is novel and important.

Women should understand that marriage is an investment, and that it’s wise to diversify. If most women marry (i.e. invest) in the same entity (the gov), then if that entity goes belly-up, they’re all left widows. And widows have a lower marriage-market value than the never-married. All mothers marry. Some marry men, some marry the State.

This is, after all, one of many reasons that sensible women eschew polygamy. You don’t all put your eggs in one basket, so to speak. If you marry a man, and he dies or abandons you, you can turn to the State. If you marry the State, who do you turn to if it abandons you? The men?

The problem with that is that there will be a massive number of women turning to a smaller number of marriageable men because the anti-family policies have eroded men’s ability to financially provide for their families. Own goal, ladies. You can’t suck men dry, and then turn to them for income. They have no income. You already took it, remember?

The feminists have been teaching us all that marriage is “just about love”. No, it’s about love, and making sure that you and your children can eat. White women have been in the stronger position, as they had their (ex)husband’s income, with the state as a fall-back. These black women are going to be totally and completely abandoned, when this is all over. Well, at least they’ve been empowered to make choices.

White women will be in a tough position, as well, as the state will struggle to manage the debt collectors and debtor’s prisons they need to maintain the childimony system. Those women who have tried to act in good faith and maintain an amicable relationship with their ex-husbands will be much better-off, of course.

This bought out the trolls at Freejinger. In fact, for the last two days this has happened. They want to swamp the board. I was an own goal (the entire comment thread was funny, watching the standard freminst talking points get swatted out of the park by the usual inhabitants of Altespace).

The difference is that in Altespace people want an argument that expands or elaborates on theology, economics, and ethical behaviour in these times. The Freejinger and Jezebel crowd is about groupthink.

And Groupthink degenerates into a mob. It is the duty of all thinking people to stand for justice. Against the mob, and against groupthink.

Update:

Comment from FreeJinger

Sugar, if you’re a misogynist dipshit, we’ll get round to you in good time. But you have got to have something good. Anyway right now we’ve got a waiting list so would you like us to add your name?
Here’s the post on his blog he is referring to. Not breaking the link because he knows about us and seemingly can’t wait for us harlots to get started on him.

Ladies, I will say this once. If a person is right on a point, It does not matter if she is a misogynist. If she is wrong, It does not matter. Your argument is emotive, abusive, and without data. Argue from the facts, not from the scraps of ideology you pretend is a philosophy. Or are you substituting the echo chamber of group agreement for thinking issues through?

 

 

Soveriegnty is not ours.

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The Lordship and rulership of this world is not given to us.

We can’t control it. No matter how good our engineering, all we can do is mitigate disasters. They happen. When the land beneath the foundations of your building liquifies, the craft with which you built the foundations is naught.

Samuel was confronting the people of Isreal who no longer wanted to wait for a judge. They were reaching for security. They now wanted a king, like the nations around them.  When they lost the kingship (for neither the people nor the king followed the law consistently) then they looked for the coming king. But Jesus’ kingdom was not built in slaughter and battle.

I Samuel

12But when you saw that King Nahash of the Ammonites came against you, you said to me, ‘No, but a king shall reign over us,’ though the LORD your God was your king. 13See, here is the king whom you have chosen, for whom you have asked; see, the LORD has set a king over you. 14If you will fear the LORD and serve him and heed his voice and not rebel against the commandment of the LORD, and if both you and the king who reigns over you will follow the LORD your God, it will be well; 15but if you will not heed the voice of the LORD, but rebel against the commandment of the LORD, then the hand of the LORD will be against you and your king

Luke 23

1Then the assembly rose as a body and brought Jesus before Pilate. 2They began to accuse him, saying, “We found this man perverting our nation, forbidding us to pay taxes to the emperor, and saying that he himself is the Messiah, a king.” 3Then Pilate asked him, “Are you the king of the Jews?” He answered, “You say so.” 4Then Pilate said to the chief priests and the crowds, “I find no basis for an accusation against this man.” 5But they were insistent and said, “He stirs up the people by teaching throughout all Judea, from Galilee where he began even to this place.”

via Daily Lectionary Readings — Devotions and Readings — Mission and Ministry — GAMC.

Since we are not sovereign, we must all submit to the will of the soveriegn — that is Jesus. Like soldiers, we are under orders. And like an army, there is a structure in the way we should order our church: The eldership guide the deacons and head of families who have the duty to teach their children. God’s intrusive: and the most systematic set of rules of living (developed by our Catholic brothers and sisters) gets quite direct about what should happen, even inside the marriage bed. My understanding of this is that it can be simplified by men to two commands and one piece of guidance.

  1. Love your wife as Christ loved the church.
  2. Do not oppress her.
  3. Use both Islam and feminism as a guide. Both are deeply in error, so if they advocate something, it is probably wise not to stray to that course of action.

Un homage d’Alte.

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I had to talk to the helpdesk today. Managed to get through them to one of the sysadmins. I am old school. I firmly believe that one should “not trouble the sysadmin, because they are subtle and prone to anger”. But the attachments on the work wikiw (won’t link. Link is on the site, but might have to change) were password protected when they should be available.

You have to approach a sysadmin with respect. Give them time. Think mountain gorillas nicely marinating in PCP after a few hits of methamphetamine. After discussing Nethack as a source of Charles Stross’s jokes,  emacs vs vi (he groks vi and thinks emacs is evil: I use nano), the BOFH, I then gently returned to the problem, which (as usual) needed redescription because the bug sheet had it down wrong. I fully expected it to be my fault.

It usually is. I prefer to run real operating systems. Real operating systems allow the superuser (admin person: a role I acquire by installing the OS on most if not all the machines I interact with myself. Ubuntu is getting too bossy. Arch is a pain, and a little too flexible. Fedora… sweeeet) the ability to do stupid things like # rm -rf ., nicely wiping your entire OS. Macs and Windows, which are designed for inarticulate artists and salesdroids respectively, will not let you at the guts of the machine. I lost a thesis on Windows. I have used unix clones ever since.

But it appears that the use of attachments was stopped on the wiki because of a security threat. I said that I did not mind the platform — the wiki requires an unusual html-like syntax not shared by a classic web page or wikipedia. He said that they are moving to wordpress for podcasts and content delivery.

There is four years work on the wiki. I suggested that he transfer it over, and if it works, send me the link and the paperwork — before I commit to at least a weekend up to my elbows in html tidying the site up.

———–

Managed to get two research tasks done. The to do list shrunk.

———–

The day ended with a teleconference, mainly on money, for a impending conference. The usual sponsors (which are drug companies & quasi-autonomous governmental organizations) are simply not sponsoring anything. Their promotion budgets have been severely cut. So we are having to review the budget.

I now have five more action items for the week.

———–

When I got home I found that the Altespace had degenerated into an argument about banning a troll. On a thread that was about what she did during a day. And what Alte had done was… clean, cook, teach, tidy and blog. Nothing immoral. Nothing controversial. And somehow, very, very offensive to many women.

I think Alte is sane. She’s just dealing with two little people and her husband. Work, paid work is not your life. The pieces of paper you have that give you letters after your name do not define you.

 

 

 

 

I am not a unitarian.

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Durer: jesus before Annas, the High Priest

The heresy of unitarianism has been with Christendom from the beginning. There are those who deny that Jesus was human, and mere spirit. There are those who deny he was divine.

But Jesus was explicit. He was of God and from God. And the reason that he was set up for crucifixtion (the charge the Romans heard was rebellion) was blasphemy.

Luke 22:63-71

63Now the men who were holding Jesus began to mock him and beat him; 64they also blindfolded him and kept asking him, “Prophesy! Who is it that struck you?” 65They kept heaping many other insults on him.

66When day came, the assembly of the elders of the people, both chief priests and scribes, gathered together, and they brought him to their council. 67They said, “If you are the Messiah, tell us.” He replied, “If I tell you, you will not believe; 68and if I question you, you will not answer. 69But from now on the Son of Man will be seated at the right hand of the power of God.” 70All of them asked, “Are you, then, the Son of God?” He said to them, “You say that I am.” 71Then they said, “What further testimony do we need? We have heard it ourselves from his own lips!”

via Daily Lectionary Readings — Devotions and Readings — Mission and Ministry — GAMC.

In this dialogue Jesus claimed that he was going to be seated with God. And then that he was the Messiah. You could call him mad, perhaps. But they could not call him a liar, and they chose not to call him mad.

The elders — skilled men, versed in theology, not of young years (these men were not incompetent) knew what they heard. They called it blasphemy. The alternative was beleiving him.

They explicitly rejected Jesus.  On Sunday Elliot wrote this, which is a better commentary on this than I can muster at present.

Anyone who investigates Christian judgment will immediately realize two things: 1. God judges very differently than humans judge, and 2. We must judge as God judges, not as man judges. How do humans judge? At our best, we make impartial decisions based on a thorough, rational consideration of all the facts available to us. At our worst, we make reckless and undeserved condemnations based on our own selfish desires. God, however, is even better than an impartial judge. “Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love” (1 John 4:8, NRSV). Here and elsewhere in the New Testament, “love” is a translation of the Greek word “agape,” which means a complete, unconditional, and selfless willing of the good of another (as I’m sure all of you serious, Classical, traditional Catholics know).

How, then, does such Love judge? It’s a trick question: Love doesn’t judge, it loves.

“This is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. For all who do evil hate the light and do not come into the light so that their deeds may not be exposed. But those who do what is true come into the light, so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God” (John 3:19-21).

God doesn’t condemn us. He merely loves us with all His being, and those of us who fear His love out of our own perversion condemn ourselves by fleeing from Him and banishing ourselves from his life-giving grace.

The slutwalk is a sign of destruction.

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This weeks listener.

 

I am a creature of Habit. On Friday I buy and read the NBR. And on Monday I read the listener. This lovely picture was on the cover, of what is supposed to be one of the serious magazines of the (left) current affairs.

Ladies, I am blaming you. You demand that we respect your wish to flaunt your sexuality. Well, you are trampling on mine. I’m one of those chumps who prefers to love one person, is comfortable with being faithful, and preferred to be modest when young and now prefers to keep his (aging) flesh quite private.

Women, on the other hand, are destroying marriage. If the fall out of infatuation (what they call love) they treat their husband with contempt and destroy him. Been there, got the divorce — fought for the kids — and was careful throughout.

But no man now can live without the fear that his wife is going to leave. And that fear drives out love. Consider the following, from a review of Michelle Lnagley’s description of adultery

 

 

The conservative commentariat is clueless as usual about these realities. All they have to offer is empty sermonizing about the sacredness of the marriage vow and sanctimonious rubbish about men “preying upon” and abandoning supposedly weak and helpless women. This is of no help to a husband faced with the reality of an unfaithful wife and the prospect of losing his family through no fault of his own. As long as men do nothing more than keep their marriage vows to women who are trampling upon their own and abusing their husbands’ trust, the situation can only continue to deteriorate.When you destroy a fundamental social institution—and none is more fundamental than marriage—the usual result is a powerful lesson in why the institution was established in the first place. Never before have we actually been able to observe how women behave when unrestrained by honor, shame, religious instruction, or fear of social disgrace and financial ruin. In our au­thor’s words, “We are just starting to see glimpses of women’s natural sexual behavior.” If her stories provide the glimpses, one shudders to imagine what the full-length view will look like.

via Rotating Polyandry—and its Enforcers, Part 1 | Counter-Currents Publishing.

So ladies, if you want my respect:

  1. Keep rape for assault. Forcible attack. Allow men to defend you from that. (In the Listener article a judge excused a man because the woman he attacked was dressed skimpily. The Judge needs to meet the cricket bat of justice)
  2. Honour marriage. Stay in it, even when it hurts. Be traditional. The only women who would interest at me are women who would see divorce as a moral failing and adultery as sinful — who commit to being nailed by only one person. Forever. And those women do exist in the West: however, they are hard, very hard to find. And religious traditionalism is not a proxy measure for commitment.
  3. Avoid sex out of marriage. (Yes, I mean it. Yes, I say exactly the same thing to my sons). Last week my son’s school was dealing with the suicide of a pupil who was being asked to “man up” and support his pregnant girlfriend. In Western law, if you have sex with her, you have no rights as to what your sperm are used for — and if she decides to have a child by them, you are up for child support whether you chose to make a child or not.

In short, discover discretion, Ladylike behaviour. Ladies keep their sexuality nicely hidden in the bedroom. Limits help eroticism. And faithfulness builds trust, establishes love (not infatuation) and drives out fear.

But at the moment I am putting all my assets into a trust for my children. I’m not dating. My sons treat women with suspicion (and yes, they are interested in them). They have seen me get hurt.

And this is unneeded. If a society honours marraige, some will fail, but not the majority. The slutwalk celebrates this. This is a sign of destruction — of marraige, of our society, and of the future for our children.

 

 

Never trust religious princes.

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Humans need a sense of ritual, of closure, of celebration. Every society has a need for religious or quasi religious celebrations. If we do not have them we make them.

Gallipoli is a classic example. As New Zealand has become post-Christian and neo pagan, many Kiwis and Aussies make a pilgrimage to Turkey to attend the Anzac celebrations there. The renaissance of Maori neo-paganism, feminisim, and earth worship  are part of the same process.

But woe betide that person who challenges the princes of public religion.  He will be dealt with: either privately or buy some form of show trial.

Luke 22:52,53

52Then Jesus said to the chief priests, the officers of the temple police, and the elders who had come for him, “Have you come out with swords and clubs as if I were a bandit? 53When I was with you day after day in the temple, you did not lay hands on me. But this is your hour, and the power of darkness!”

Acts 7:51 –53

51“You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you are forever opposing the Holy Spirit, just as your ancestors used to do. 52Which of the prophets did your ancestors not persecute? They killed those who foretold the coming of the Righteous One, and now you have become his betrayers and murderers. 53You are the ones that received the law as ordained by angels, and yet you have not kept it.”

via Daily Lectionary Readings — Devotions and Readings — Mission and Ministry — GAMC.

There is no question that both Jesus and Stephen were Jewish. They were being blunt, direct, and challenging the council that ruled Jerusalem from the temple. (This text has been used by antisemetic idiots for many years, but they ignore who the people talking were).

We are to be gentle and gracious at times, At other times, we should confront. And, in general, the fashionable evils of this world are more imaginary than the real evils.

Take, for example, equal pay. There is no differential in the wages paid to men and women — but employed women generally “make” 78-80% of what employed men do. However,  ,more men are unemployed, more men do risky, dirty, and physically hard jobs (which pay more) and more men do overtime. As a result, more men die at work than women.

However, the narrative is around women being oppressed. And to challenge this is to not be politically correct, and be shunned. To challenge the Maori ideas of tapu, noa and Taniwha (dragons in the swamp) is not acceptable. We are told we must bend.

But our duty is to tell these religious princes  you are worshipping idols that do not speak, or hear, or act. You are putting your soul, and the soul of those who follow you, at peril.

If we are lucky, we will only be seen as rude and uncouth. It is far more likely that there will be a witch hunt against us… for any cirmes, real or imagined, (including blasphemy against the idols of feminism and gay pride) that the public find believable.

Is the true church hated?

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The simple answer is that the true church was hated because Jesus was hated. Jesus was confrontational. He demanded justice, in addition to liturgy.

Jesus was accounted to be of Judah: his mother was affiliated with Levi — indeed her cousin was married to a priest. But Jesus is here confronting the priests.

Matthew 21.

28“What do you think? A man had two sons; he went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work in the vineyard today.’ 29He answered, ‘I will not’; but later he changed his mind and went. 30The father went to the second and said the same; and he answered, ‘I go, sir’; but he did not go. 31Which of the two did the will of his father?” They said, “The first.” Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you. 32For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him; and even after you saw it, you did not change your minds and believe him.”

via Daily Lectionary Readings — Devotions and Readings — Mission and Ministry — GAMC.

The tax collectors and prostitutes knew that they needed some form of salvation, because the law merely condemned them.

Romans 4:

13For the promise that he would inherit the world did not come to Abraham or to his descendants through the law but through the righteousness of faith. 14If it is the adherents of the law who are to be the heirs, faith is null and the promise is void. 15For the law brings wrath; but where there is no law, neither is there violation.

Paul then deliberately uses Abraham — who lived before the law — as an example. For the law, a sense of justice, is written in our hearts. We cannot say that we know no law unless we have ablated our conscience so we are shameless, the sons and daugthers of perdition.

But the sex worker and the servant of inland revenue are hated. They were hated in Jesus’ time, they are hated now. And they are closer to salvation, for they feel the condemnation, and cannot find a way out but throught the cross.

The priests saw their liturgy as sufficient. Liturgy is never hated. The true church says impolite things. It is not nice. And it is hated.

 

Liberalism? Ick. Speculation? Meh.

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One of the reasons I like Calvin is that he is a mere biblical theologial. Warfield described him thusly:

He even speaks with impatience of speculative, and what we may call inferential theology, and he is accordingly himself spoken of with impatience by modern historians of thought as a “merely Biblical theologian,” who is, therefore, without any real doctrine of God, such as Zwingli has. The reproach, if it be a reproach, is just. Calvin refused to go beyond “what is written”–written plainly in the book of nature or in the book of revelation. He insisted that we can know nothing of God, for example, except what He has chosen to make known to us in His works and Word; all beyond this is but empty fancy, which merely “flutters” in the brain,

But our brain consistently flutters. We like speculation. Some of it’s fun. For example “What would happen if aliens landed?” Brother Guy Consolmagno, when given this one, manfully commented.

“God is bigger than just humanity. God is also the god of angels.”

He said the characteristics synonymous with having a soul – intelligence, free will, freedom to love and freedom to make decisions may not be unique to humans.

“Any entity – no matter how many tentacles it has has a soul,’ he said.

Then there is “is God Male? — which has occupied the Altesphere for most of today. Or it can be political: Boman is correct that there has never been a true conservative / right party in the USA. The Tories, who were royalist and accepted the establishment of religion, went to Canada. Proph, however, is only half right about legalizing weed and other illegal substances: the left wing busybodies will sue (he’s correct there) but about two thirds will not indulge. The rot (supported by the stupid left) is apparent, particularly in cities, but being stoned is not consistent with working. And if the economy collapses, not working will lead to not eating.

In the previous paragraph, I mentioned the economy collapsing. The economy is not society — and Homespun Wisdom has a very good post on the value of living in a high trust society. High trust societies, by the way, try to stop people starving, but the implied social contract is that you will work at something if you are at all able.

The hidden deer has written a fairly non speculative essay that would fit into the classical devotional mode. He suggests that you settle in your own mind who is in control (LORDship) of your life. Hint: if you are a Christian, it is not you.

In the meantime, the secular world is getting depressing. Dalrock has linked to a site about getting divorced. Before you contemplate going to the lawyer, sit and watch a few hundred dollar bills being burnt. Divorce will hurt your children, destroy your wealth, limit your ability to find another partner, and hurt your relationship with God. God hates divorce.

And, the left, who want you to ruin your morals and your family, are so risk averse about minor things. As hidden leaves notes:

Take a ride on a party barge with a mixed crew. Check out those around you. Those who donned life jackets for the relaxed 15mph cruise will be the liberals of the group.

Maybe it’s the singular mindset produced by fishing, maybe it’s the beer, but I increasingly think the partisan divide is almost wholly defined by risk aversion.

Just remember that those pesky immoral liberals are everywhere. Propagandising. Videos rock, because then we have them caught.

It may be fun to speculate, but our job is to speak truth, in actions, and at time with words. And sometimes we spend too much time down the rabbit hole and not enough time doing good.