I want to refer back to the last Labour governments of NZ and the UK. (The current Australian Labour and United States Democratic regimes have the same pattern). There is an emphasis on perception, on spin, and a lack of real progress. In fact, the policies can make things worse This alliance spreads beyond politics. And, with the possible exception of the US, the alliance is of the left.
In retrospect, the Brown/Blair period may be seen as a prolonged experiment which taught the liberal Left that its ideas cannot work, do not work, and have no chance of ever working.
It takes time to ruin a country. Four years, the average period between elections, was never going to be enough. But 13 years of Left-wing government has produced a mountain of evidence that the Conservative analysis is better and more truthful.The vital importance of this experiment lay in the special circumstances of the post-war period. Throughout this time, the liberal Left, as general election results show, has tended to be unpopular with voters. But its progressive ideas have enjoyed a disproportionate amount of traction among British governing elites.
This, in turn, led to a structural imbalance. By the mid-Nineties, the Right had secured victory in four consecutive general elections. However, the broad Left had secured control of vast tracts of our national life. It was powerful way beyond its traditional power bases of the Labour Party, the trade unions and the British working classes. It dominated the higher reaches of the universities, education, the public service bureaucracy, local government, Whitehall, the media (and in particular the BBC), the churches, and the police.
So rampant and all-pervasive was the influence of this liberal-Left elite that by the end almost every meaningful action taken by the democratically elected John Major government could be sabotaged or blocked outright by a progressive alliance, which stretched through the Civil Service, the BBC, and the universities.
Now, the same consensus works within families for their destruction. Feminism is the accepted ideology, and this is causing casualties. Alte pointed out that this is cheapening the way women present themselves.
I’m so tired of “fellatio chic”, where models insist on having their mouth hanging open in every photograph. This noughties penchant is even a step-down from the “drug addict chic” of the nineties, and it’s become the de facto facial expression used to sell everything from children’s snow suits to soup tureens.
Really? If I buy your down jacket I’ll also look like a worn-out prostitute? Oh, goody. Or is it just that your plasticized model has had so much work done on her face that her lips don’t close anymore and smiling would make her eyebrows crack?
Erm… thanks, but no thanks. Try aiming your products at women who aren’t pathetically desperate for attention. Women whose vocabulary extends beyond, “I don’t know why he doesn’t call back.” The pornification of all media is so dull. It’s so… last year. Cute is in, hot is out.
And Bill Price has been talking about the casualties in the form of murder suicide among young men.
In the case of psychologically fragile young men, like Barnes, a disputed custody case is often enough to effectively ruin their lives, and at that age it can be very difficult to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Following DV allegations by the girlfriend, who claimed he had PTSD and once drew a knife and threatened suicide, he was ordered to have only supervised visitation with his baby daughter. We don’t know whether the girlfriend was telling the truth or not, but Pierce County Sheriff spokesman Ed Troyer contradicted her claims that Barnes had PTSD, effectively calling her a liar.
Anyway, it doesn’t matter whether a woman is telling the truth — her mere accusation is almost always enough, especially when the man doesn’t have a lawyer representing him, to obtain a supervised visitation ruling. Apparently, in Barnes’ case it was also enough to force him to take DV classes, which, because they are punitive in nature (not to mention expensive — the cost falls on the attendee), should never be ordered without a conviction.
Naturally, his life fell apart after the summer ruling, he lost his apartment (the accompanying child support order is likely what put him on the street), then his job, and he grew increasingly despondent.
Now. how does this link with today’s readings. Jesus says he is the bread of life. He is the truth. And the authorise, who were challenging him… are not.
30So they said to him, “What sign are you going to give us then, so that we may see it and believe you? What work are you performing? 31Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’” 32Then Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. 33For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”
48I am the bread of life. 49Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. 50This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. 51I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
In this world, we should be standing for the truth. We should be standing for those things which are sustainable and build well adjusted children, productive husbands, godly wives and improve the net sum of human joy. That glorify God.
Feminism does not. Game is not.
Putting a woman on a pedestal so “the inner Goddess is worshipped” (as per the television advertisements for depilatory products here) or seeing women as recepticles to be “pumped and dumped” is not.
When we respect the dignity of women (which we should) we should also respect the dignity of men. Men have virtues: their aggression at controlled violence is one of them.
For the feminist elite forget they lie at sleep at night because rude, smelly men with darkened faces and ghillie suits are putting their life on the line. Because male mental health nurses are taking the bulk of the restraint courses (the women do them as well, but a 50 kilo woman is not useful against a 110 kilo man who is paraniod on methamphetamine. Before I get criticised, I worked in AUckland during the peak of the amphetamine epidemic). You sleep well at night because the police and firemen — again, mainly male — walch over our houses.
As a society, we need to rediscover truth and stop screaming every time reality disproves our ideology.
Indeed. Well said.
sorry to go off topic but. I wonder how can rape occur in marriage if they consented to the covenant of marriage beforehand that their bodies are not their own but their spouse?
Depends on how you define consent. If you define that you covenant your body to the other — so she has the right to demand a good rogering, as do you… then there is no rape in marriage.
If you define consent as given minute by minute as if one had no covenant, then here is ooin marriage: you have to continually woo her.
The current laws take the second position.
I remember listening to a christian radio show in australia. And a woman called in who said she married a guy who was chauvanistic and believed that her body was his and he can do whatever he wants with her or something along those lines. That he raped her. I mean how can be rape her in marriage unless he is a horrible sniveling beta male. He certainly sounded like a dominant male according to her story.