Today’s passage is a correction for those of us who think that Jesus did not care. That he was detached. That he did not grieve, That he did not rage.
There is a time for anger. When a tower block is clad in something flammable and goes up in minutes, you rage. At how this was allowed to occur. Why there were no regulations about such. And you nonour not the narrative, but those who did the work rescuing others.
Inevitably the rescuers will be men. Being strong helps. Being fit helps. Despite the best efforts of the fire brigades, many have dies in this event.
And training our young men to channel their aggression, not suppress it will help. If shoddy workmanship and corruption leads to tower blocks having to be repaired and retrofitted, let it be so. Let the landlord eat the loss. We are demolishing an eighty year old church because it will not meet current earthquake regulations. This will cost a considerable amount of money. If we need to feel the pain, so should they.
41As he came near and saw the city, he wept over it, 42saying, “If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. 43Indeed, the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up ramparts around you and surround you, and hem you in on every side. 44They will crush you to the ground, you and your children within you, and they will not leave within you one stone upon another; because you did not recognize the time of your visitation from God.”
45Then he entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling things there; 46and he said, “It is written, ‘My house shall be a house of prayer’; but you have made it a den of robbers.” 47Every day he was teaching in the temple. The chief priests, the scribes, and the leaders of the people kept looking for a way to kill him; 48but they did not find anything they could do, for all the people were spellbound by what they heard.
The patriarchy is about truth and duty. It is not about what feels right. No one likes cleaning sewers or feeding stock at 0430. It is done because it needs to be done. No one cares about the popularity of the truth. It is true or it is not.
It is not about how many people agree a theory works, if it is disproven, it is wrong. (Climate change alarmists please note). It is not about how many page links you get or your ranking on Alexa. It is about truth and saying what is true.
For no one wanted that prophecy that Jerusalem would be destroyed, and no banker felt he deserved to feel the whip Christ wielded.
It’s all a consequence of their need to defend their current Narrative and is an aspect of their discredit-and-disqualify tactic. Comparative site traffic was a weapon that John Scalzi’s fans used to use to try to dismiss the significance of VP back in the 2012-2013 timeframe. They would claim that my criticism was nothing more than envy; “envy” is their standard response they utilize in order to avoid responding substantively to criticism. You see, it doesn’t matter what you say so long as envy causes you to say it.
Of course, once my traffic increased and it came out that Scalzi was exaggerating his traffic by a factor of 5+, they had to switch tactics while maintaining the Narrative. Since their rhetoric is all based on argumentum ad populum, they always need to find a metric, however convoluted, to claim that the numbers are on their side. That is why Donald Trump’s election (and, to a lesser extent, Bernie’s defeat in the Democratic primary) sent them into such disarray; because it is no longer possible for them to pretend that their positions are, in fact, more popular.
I never cared about my site traffic until 2013, when I understood how important it is to the SJWs. Now, of course, I wield it as an effective weapon against them.
What Vox Popoli does not say is that arguing from popularity, like argument from authority or against the person, is a logical error. The narrative of this time uses such, but the narrative is a lie. They want to remove courage because it may be violent, not knowing that aggression disciplined gives the needed courage in times of crisis. I’m pretty sure the firefighters did not want to run into that towering torch that contained 600 odd people.
But they did so, because of their pride, their discipline and their courage. May we continue to have such.
And may we continue to have faith.