Opus 2020-248: The Big Questions

I was watching a podcast in which William Lane Craig was being interviewed.  He is a philosopher and apologist who thrives on debates in an academic setting.  In his reminiscing he said something about coming to the point in life where he began to ask the big questions like, “What is the meaning of life?”  The answer is going to be different for each of us based on where our values are.

For the Christian it involves loving and enjoying God.  The Westminster Shorter Catachism starts off on this point with a question and answer.

    Q:  What is the chief end of man?
    A:  Man’s chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.

For the capitalist it might be to die with the most toys.  A variation of this might be the politician who is only happy with more power.  It is easy to measure how much money you have but hard to compare it to your goal.  

A Marxist?  I would have to guess it would involve making a real contribution of the destruction of liberty and individuality in the world.  For a Marxist the State is his god and the person is just a calorie of energy to run the machine of State.  Man has no other value.

For the spear-carriers, the masses, it would be getting to the end of the day without any conflict.  I have a hard time believing that everyone doesn’t ask the question at some point but I think some people are just better at ignoring it.  

Eventually we will all look back over our lives and evaluate how we spent the time we had.

homo unius libri

Opus 2020-247: Hope and Fear

I find the level of fear discouraging when I am out and around.  There are obviously people who see through the whole attempt to control by panic but there are also a lot of people who really believe they are going to die if they take a free breath.

This is a good time for believers to explain to people why they do not fear.  You might want to review the following,

(1Pe 3:15 NAS77) but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence;

If you are a believer you have a hope.  That is not an empty wish but an assurance.  Because of that you should not be walking around in a tizzy.  The opportunity comes when you get a chance to explain to people why you are not frozen with fear.  Your confidence is not in a rational analysis of the numbers, although that would certainly reduce your concern.  It isn’t a belief in science or medicine, although we have the best in the world.  No, you hope is in the Creator.

If you are a believer you are not paralyzed by fear are you?  Maybe it is time to review what you should be telling other people.  As my son said when he was a college student with his head being opened up to remove a growth, “What is the worst that can happen?  If I die I get to be with Jesus and I don’t have to take the final.”

homo unius libri

Opus 2020-246: Ode to Old: Forgetting Blessings

As you get older the blank spots in your memory get more frequent.  I think everyone, at every age, has moments where they cannot remember a word or a name.  It is nothing to worry about.  What the younger people may not realize is it gets more regular as you get older.  It isn’t a matter of not knowing how many years you have been married.  I have always had to do a little math to figure that out.  It is a matter of writing a sentence and knowing the exact word you want to use but you can’t remember what it is.  You can almost spell it but you can’t see it.

As I was walking my mind wandered and for some reason I was trying to remember the name of a supreme court justice.  I could see his face.  I could tell you about his life.  I just could not remember his name.  I know I knew it because I had discussed him before.  It wasn’t there.  So I just kept walking.  About a hundred steps later it popped into my head, “Clarence Thomas.”  

I knew it would come and it gave me something to be thankful for.  I was thanking God for the ability to still get out and walk, for remembering how to get home and remembering to zip up my pants.  I was also grateful that I am still at a stage where I know that I have forgotten something.

Happy aging.

homo unius libri

Opus 2020-245: A Matter of Perspective

Ruth Bader Ginsburg has died.

This is a good time to observe reactions and take notes.  You will find three general categories of response.

One group will be the Passionate.  These people will speak with great enthusiasm for or against.  Their emotions will drown out anything of value that they might add except for their kindred spirits who want even more.  She will be portrayed as either Joan of Arc or your ex-wife.  Unless you agree with them and want a rush, don’t waste your time.

Another group will be the Courteous.  Many of us were told that if we could not say something nice we should not say anything at all.  These people will increase their chance of stroke or heart attack trying to restrain themselves.  For those who are into Latin, nolite detrahere de mortuis.  Wikipedia tells me that means “Don’t speak ill of the dead.”  I thought President Trump gave a good example of that when the press blind-sided him with the news of her death.  They will not praise her but they will also be polite.

The last group will be the Factual.  In their hearts they are trying to speak clearly, control their passion maintain a level of decorum.  They have opinions but they are backed up by documented evidence.  A good example of this is found at American Thinker.  Andrea Widburg says that she read Ginsburg’s opinions when doing legal research.  She goes into detail but if you don’t have time to read her article I think this sums it up.

“The worst thing about her decisions, though, was how she misused case authority to create new principles out of whole cloth. Nothing shows that more than in her determination to bypass our American Constitution and law and look to foreign constitutions, laws, and customs.”

The “whole cloth” comment I would not be able to judge but the use of international law to trump the Constitution I was aware of in my non-legal reading.  

As I opened I suggested taking notes.  This is a good time to learn if you can rely on people’s opinions.  One blogger that I have enjoyed reading had this to say,

“Though I disagreed with some of her decisions, she was passionate, honourable, articulate, and her legal decisions were well-thought.”

I will continue to read what he has to say but will begin to question if he is of sound mind.  There will be others.  Most people writing are not emotionally involved.  If I were reading a statement by a family member I would make allowances.  Most people will be held to a higher standard in my world.  

But who cares what I think?

homo unius libri

Opus 2020-244: Election 2020: A Moment of Hope

I almost had a wish fulfilled this week.

I have been volunteering the last few days at our county Republican headquarters.  I am sure that the people in charge want me to push the yard signs and flags.  I do what I can but I enjoy conversations more.  I had a man come in that engaged me in conversation because he was a bit conflicted.  In 2016 he did what many of us did.  He held his nose and voted for Trump.  His wife voted for Hillary.  Now, four years later, his wife is still leaning Democrat and he was talking about holding his nose again.  I was mystified.  He understood and conceded everything that Trump has done.  There was no question of where Trump stands.  What was the problem?  Some enthused Trump supporters driving around in their pickups with Trump flags in the back yelled some things that were not polite.  Really?  That is the problem?  I reminded him he was voting for Trump not the pickup read necks.

Which brings me to my wish fulfillment.  I shared with him that one of the things I was looking for was a discussion with someone intelligent about why they would vote for Biden.  Since his wife is leaning that way and he was waffling this seemed to be my moment.  We talked for about an hour.  It was a civil, polite conversation.  I kept asking the question, “What reason would you have for voting for Biden?”  I never got an answer that had anything to do with anything but emotion because Trump supporters were enthusiastic and Trump is not always the smoothest politician.  

It is frustrating.  We want to talk facts and truth.  They want to emote about feelings.  Here was a family man who is pro-life, an ex-police officer and deeply religious.  It would seem this would be a slam dunk for Trump but, feelings.

There are times when I despair for even the good people in my country.  The Progressives* in education and the media have done a great job of brainwashing and feminizing the population.  I hope God has mercy on us, the Progressives* won’t.

*(Liberals, educators, socialists, communists, elites, Rinos, Democrats, leftists, Never Trumpers, Antifa, etc)

homo unius libri

Opus 2020-243: Firsts: PT

I recently had my first experience with physical therapy.

For at least six months I have had an ongoing pain in my hip.  I firmly believe that the body will usually heal itself but my hip wasn’t buying it.  Since I am at the age when joints start to wear out I finally went to get a professional opinion.  The good news was that the bone and cartilage were in good shape.  The bad news is it was a muscle problem.  The doctor suggested physical therapy and since I have the time I agreed to go.

It was an interesting experience.  I had always put PT in a category with acupuncture and chiropractors.  I admitted they had some worth.  I just didn’t know what it was.  The young woman that worked with me seemed to know her stuff.  She evaluated, pushed and pulled, gave me exercises and sent me on my way.

Am I cured?  I don’t know.  The nature of the beast is it takes time to heal.  She said that therapy doesn’t always make it all better as much as speeding the healing process.  Like much in life it depends on my applying the lessons learned.  I expect to get better in time and hope to keep up the exercises.  

I have been wrong before.

homo unius libri

Opus 2020-242: A Time That Has Come

I want to see an experiment.  I want to see how it would work to establish some city states.  I have mentioned it before but I think the time is golden.  I have three naturals for the experiment.  They are all easy to isolate, their politics would make them willing to be separated, and they are literally hell holes.

I am thinking of Manhattan Island, Seattle and San Francisco.  The first is an island and the others are on peninsulas.  They all have access to the sea.

It doesn’t need to be permanent.  It could be a twenty year experiment.  Then we could reevaluate.  At that point they might be glad to become American again but we might be so glad they are gone that we would not even consider it.

If it went well we might give other cities a chance to vote on City Statehood.  I would suggest Portland and Chicago as good candidates.   

Certain provisions would be necessary.  I would suggest that the United States not cede the immediate shore lines.  They would need to maintain control of a few feet to make sure that we don’t have a tax free Singapore on our hands.  They could have no rights to the waterways around them.  I would give them an easement to travel through but not the right to restrict travel or trade by the remaining Americans.  I am sure there would be a number of institutions that would need to move out before they were isolated, but that is doable.

Of course they would have their own passports and there would be tariffs on products moved in and out.  

It is a conversation that we need to have.

homo unius libri

Opus 2020-241: War Games

Remember the line, “What would happen if they had a war and nobody came?”  The question of course is the meaningless pap served up as vegan sirloin by the left.  The real answer to the question is what we are seeing in Seattle, Portland, Chicago, New York, etc.  Pretty isn’t it.  It isn’t a case of flowers sticking out of gun barrels and tanks rusting away in city parks.  It is uncontested violence and mayhem.  The real life result of people thinking that question is clever is “What would happen if they had a war and only one side showed up?”

We are seeing the results.  There is a war going on and one side has so far refused to show up.  We keep thinking that you can play nice with barbarians.  I apologize to the barbarians because they at least had some kind on honor.  These insurrectionists on our streets have none.  They have the bully philosophy:  If it is weak, beat.  If it is strong, run.  If it fights back, cry “Mama.”

Can you picture where the world would be today if the world had refused to stand up to Adolf Hitler.  What language would we be speaking today if the Polish army had not arrived at Vienna in time to stop the Ottoman invasion?  There come times in history when you can’t back up and draw another line in the sand.  If we are not already there we are getting close.  You need to begin thinking today about how you will respond when the thugs start down your street with their bottles of gasoline and Bic lighters.  

The war has started.  How will it finish?

homo unius libri

Opus 2020-240: Let the Chips Fall, part 2 of 2

I am willing to let people live in the world they create.

If the Democrats were willing to take their lumps and get on with the Republic, I would say let them live in their fulfilled dreams.  Don’t bail them out.  Don’t subsidize their fantasy.  Most of the violence is in states that think Republicans are of the devil but they probably don’t believe in the devil so they are happy saying, “Orange Man bad.”  The problem is they are not willing to live in their ashes.  They want to share the benefits of socialism.  They are like the child who stuffs all their M&M’s in their mouths and then wants you to share yours.  If you won’t share then they will sneak in when you are asleep and help themselves.

The only peaceful way we can work this out is to have strong, patriotic district attorneys and judges backing up disciplines, well equipped police.  They can be the front line.  In most cases that will be enough.  Antifa and BLM are not going to come to the party if they know the rules will be enforced.  They don’t work that way.  They only play when they can cheat.  The backup will be determined citizens ready to step in if the police are at a lunch break and informed citizens who serve on juries if the response comes to court.

That is the way the rule of law works.  You make the laws.  You enforce the laws.  The chips fall to a jury of your peers and they make wise choices.

Or you have anarchy and all the death and suffering that entails.  I keep hoping for the peaceful route.

Make your choice America.  November is coming.  There will be more on the ballot than a president.  

homo unius libri

Opus 2020-239: Let the Chips Fall, part 1 of 2

There is a tendency in Americans to feel real sympathy for the people living in the areas decimated by the riots.  We see the burned out businesses and cars.  We see people who were minding their own business beaten to the ground.  We see people trying to defend their life’s work vilified.  Our hearts go out to them.

I am not so sure we should go there.  Keep in mind that these areas are full of people who elected the city councils, mayors and governors that are making the decisions that perpetuate the violence.  Did you see that key word?  “Elected”.  They were not appointed.  They did not pull a military coup.  The people elected them.  According to the Seattle Times, the city of Seattle voted 87% for Hillary in 2016.  Their city council reflects that.  How many of those businesses going up in flames belonged to people who supported the party of Antifa?  Chicago has also seen a lot of violence.  82.2 percent for Hillary.  

For Portland I could only find the county results.  Multnomah County went 76% for Hillary.  I would imagine that the city percentage was much higher.  So again I ask, “How many of the people who had lives destroyed voted for it?”  If my neighbor refuses to change his oil do I have an obligation to help him pay for a new engine?

I am guessing that if you could get the numbers from all the other places that are having a Marxist reality visit, you would find that they had overwhelming support for Hillary Clinton four years ago.  I would still feel sorry for them except for one thing that I believe:  If they held another election today the people would vote the same way.  The Seattle City Council is secure.  The same goes for Portland.  If you look at the states that are having their economies destroyed by jack booted governors I think you would find them on the path to reelection.  

The old saying was, “You get what you pay for.”  

To be continued...

homo unius libri

Opus 2020-238: The Price of Seeing Justice Done

Should I lie to get on a jury?

I don’t know if you have ever been called for jury duty.  If you make it into a court room they start the process of jury selection.  It is a frustrating experience.  It is obvious that the lawyers are looking for a group of people stupid enough to be deceived.  I know I will not make it through the sifting as soon as they bring up a charge of drunk driving.  Since I don’t drink the defense does not want me on the jury.  I also have known police officers and my home has been broken into.  I am an undesirable.  

I guess I could lie.

A further point of frustration is the instructions that the judge gives the jury.  He has the position to pull out selected laws and tell you what your options are.  As I asked the judge the one time I got that far, “If you are going to tell me that, what do you need a jury for?”

This comes to mind because the federal government is finally getting in the business of justice and prosecuting insurrectionists.  We also see Kyle Rittenhouse being prosecuted as a judicial hate crime.  There are some juries I would be glad to join but I will never get a chance.

Unless I lie.

What price justice?

homo unius libri

Opus 2020-237: Never-Never Land

Nineteen years and the “Never” has become an empty promise.  

911 changed the game with terrorism.  It did so in one day.  It did so in a way that was hard to ignore.  People are ignoring it anyway.  Before September 11 we were used to calling in the negotiators and working out a deal that did not involve a lot of innocent people being murdered.  There was no negotiation as the airplanes slammed into the Twin Towers.  It was a simple announcement, “You are not hearing us.  It wouldn’t matter if you did.  We hate you.  We will kill you.”

Antifa/BLM has changed the game in political protest.  It did not happen in one day.  The media has been doing everything they can to cover up the message.  The word has been slowly getting out but there are still a lot of people living in denial.  They also have a simple message, “We don’t care if you are hearing us.  We hate you.  We are going to destroy your world and if you get in the way we will destroy you too.”  It seems clear.

Both 911 terrorists and Antifa/BLM terrorists are highly trained.  They know what they want and are willing to do whatever it takes to get it.  One group went out in a flash of glory.  The other is going to continue until they run into a wall.  One group was sponsored by foreigners and foreign governments.  The current terrorists have added one of our major political parties as a sponsor.  What is scary is that 47% that Mitt Romney first brought up.  We keep seeing them in the statistics.  They will mindlessly endorse anything the Democrat Party tells them.

It is going to be a bumpy ride.  I hope to see you alive and well on the 20 year anniversary of 911.  Next stop, November 3.

homo unius libri

Opus 2020-236: New and Improved

I sometimes ask myself how long I will continue to blog.  I always assumed you would know I was dead when things stopped appearing for a long time.  I assumed I would keep writing as long as I had something to say.  

I am not sure that Blogger agrees with that.  

If you don’t publish a blog you don’t see what goes on behind the scenes.  Every once in a time the programers and executives at Blogger feel a need to be needed.  As a result they “update” the interface to make it “better and more responsive” or some such lingo.  All it really does it make you waste time trying to figure out what they did with all the features you use.

This time they have outdone themselves.  I have tried using their new format and I always end up going back to the legacy version to finish the job.  They say that I won’t be able to do that after September.  We will see.  As of now I cannot figure out how to add labels or answer comments.  Other features I have been able to find.  They all take more steps that before but I can find them.  If they force me into the new format in October then I will need to make some decisions.

I may need to stop adding labels.  That in itself won’t be a big tragedy.  I am not sure they serve any function except making the writer think he has something going.  I can still post.

I may not be able to respond to comments.  I usually do.  It seems only courteous.  If you find that you leave a bit of wisdom and I never respond it will be because they have decided I don’t need to respond.

Some people need a continual diet of newness.  Personally I think it is like a vitamin deficiency that makes them feel it, but who am I to judge.  My kids are that way.  They always want to go to a new restaurant.  They always have to try what is new on the menu.  I will go to new places and explore the menu but once I find out what I like and what is culinary verbosity, I don’t need to look at the menu again.  I am the same way with technology.

As is true of so much, the book of Proverbs has something to say on this issue.

(Pro 24:21 KJV) My son, fear thou the LORD and the king: and meddle not with them that are given to change:

I don’t like life to be like a rental car.  You know the controls are there somewhere but don’t know what demented mind made the decision to move them.  

Onward, even if it is not forward.

homo unius libri

Opus 2020-235: Remember Drudge?

I miss Drudge.  Can I say that without being laughed off the internet?  I remember the days when one of my first stops was the Drudge Report.  You could count on the headline being a statement of what was happening in the world.  You could glance down the list of links and take your pick of what you thought was most urgent to know.  Once you learned a few things, like “big science breakthroughs” were all from English newspapers and were mainly about hoped for break throughs, you could have a productive morning.

Then the segue began.  I am not sure which came first.  I began to notice that a lot of the headlines in the links did not reflect what the story was about.  I also noticed an increase in what became Trump bashing.  I started hovering over the link to see where the news came from.  An increasing number were from left wing rags that were not worth the click.  Eventually I weaned myself and started looking elsewhere.

I miss Drudge, not enough to visit the site again, but I still miss what he used to be.  I miss Drudge, not for what the site became but for what it was.  I also miss the westerns that used to be on TV, chips that were not low sodium, 99 cent Whoppers, cars without seat belts and cheap gas.

Life moves on.  We must move with it.

homo unius libri

Opus 2020-234: Convention Slight of Hand

I found the Republican National Convention full of positive messages and encouragement.  The best messages came from the common people.  The professionals tended to be standard, boilerplate cheerleading but the working people had something to say and said it well.

One speech that bothered me was given by Ivanka Trump.  She did a good job and everybody seemed to like what she shared.  If it was listing accomplishments of her father is was quite a list.  The problem I had was that it was more the kind of accomplishments that big government people would come up with.  There were a lot of things done for a lot of people.  To tell you the truth I can’t remember what they were specifically but for each need listed the answer seemed to be, “Throw some money at it.”  That money has to come from somewhere and what people in the cheering section seem to forget is that throwing money at problems is the way the Democrats deal with them, Democrats and too many Republicans.  

It reminds me of the video making the rounds of a young black man with a brick running up behind an old white man crossing the street and bashing in his head.  He wasn’t even looking.  He had done nothing except walking while white.  It doesn’t make any difference.  He now needs a new head.

Keep your mind in gear, your hand on your wallet and your voter ID where it can be presented.  

homo unius libri

Opus 2020-233: Ode to Old: Boring Yourself to Death

 ave you known people who retire and die in a very short time.  I know I am not the only one to notice it.  When I got my first teaching position, one of the men on staff had been a teacher at my junior high school.  Keep in mind I was 40 when I transitioned to the classroom.  He was still going strong.  He seemed in the peak of health.  A few years later he retired and was dead within a year.  It makes you think.

I was going through some notes from Pensees and Blaise Pascal had a thought that might give some insight into this.

“Nothing is so insufferable to man as to be completely at rest, without passions, without business, without diversion, without study. He then feels his nothingness, his forlornness, his insufficiency, his dependence, his weakness, his emptiness. There will immediately arise from the depth of his heart weariness, gloom, sadness, fretfulness, vexation, despair.”  Highlight Loc. 900-903

Often when people retire they find that there is nothing to do.  Their whole life was their job.  Without it they are lost.  There body starts to wind down.  Before you know it they have bored themselves to death.

I can sympathize.  I am retired.  It is really hard to get up and get going when you don’t have any deadlines.  I make my own deadlines.  I set the alarm for 5:00 so I can get up and spend some time in worship and study.  I also have children and grandchildren that bring constant joy to life.  It helps to have things important to care about.

Stay active.

Pascal, Blaise.  Pensees.  Project Gutenberg.

homo unius libri

Opus 2020-232: Personal Hangup

I am thinking about getting a MAGA hat.  It would be more of a collector’s item than part of my wardrobe.  I don’t like caps.  They don’t cover my ears or the back of my neck.  I also am not big on wearing advertising.  I avoid clothing with logos.

I have a long history of not liking bumper stickers.  I enjoy reading them on other people’s cars but don’t want them on mine.  For one, they are hard to get off when they get ratty.  For another it means I have to be really careful when I drive.  I don’t feel good about cutting someone off when I have a Jesus bumper sticker.  In today’s world there are a lot of bumper stickers that will get your windshield busted.

I can still talk though, and I can still vote.

Join me either way.

homo unius libri

Opus 2020-231: Payday Required

I saw it again.  A couple of women attacked a child holding a Trump sign.  In the first case they grabbed his hat, stomped on his hand, smacked one of the adults and generally acted like spoiled bullies.  The last I heard they had both been arrested.  In the latest episode I didn’t get past the headline but it sounded like the same kind of aggressive behavior.

I think this kind of thing is only partially about Trump.  Yes, they hate him and everything he is trying to do.  The only problem with that is they probably could not tell you what he is trying to do.  It is more endemic than that.  It is about human nature and what Christians call original sin or the carnal nature.  There is something built into human nature that tries to get away with things and is only held in check by concern about possible consequences.  We have all done things that were technically illegal.  Haven’t you ever thrown an apple core out the window as you drove across the desert?  Technically it is littering.  It is illegal.  If there had been a snitch watching you might have restrained yourself.  Have you ever parked in a spot reserved for pregnant women?  Have you ever gone in the exit or ducked under the ropes forming a line?

Most of us have had an adult pounding a sense of right and wrong into us so we only violate minor issues.  The young women involved in these attacks on children with Trump signs were not taught right and wrong as absolute values.  They were taught that right is anything you can get away with and the big crime is getting caught.  It is one of the reasons why the millennial snowflakes are willing to be a part of insurrection.  They are convinced they will not be caught and if by some chance they are, they will be bailed out with no consequence.  So far they have been right.

Sin is fun.  Evil kind of grows on you.  Who has not wanted to throw a rock through a window?  Most of us restrain ourselves.  The rioters don’t.

Trump is not really the problem.  He is the excuse.  The violence will continue until the price paid for uncivilized behavior comes due.

homo unius libri

Opus 2020-230: Headlines: Civil not Martial

I have friends who want Trump to send in the troops and take back the cities granting riot privileges to Antifa and BLM.  I keep telling them that it is not a good idea.  When I pointed out that the Progressives* are looking for a “Kent State Moment” they seemed to get the idea.

If you want a good explanation of why sending in the Mounties is not a good idea I would recommend this article from Townhall.  I found it in a link from Free North Carolina.  It explains the law and the complexity of a military solution.  Some I already knew, other points were new to me.

In case you missed it, Trump has shown his creativity.  He is deputizing the local police as federal law enforcement.  That will mean that the rioters can be arrested and prosecuted in federal courts and get around the catch and release local Democrat imitations of a legal system.

Stay tuned and keep praying.

*(Liberals, educators, socialists, communists, elites, Rinos, Democrats, leftists, Never Trumpers, Antifa, etc)

homo unius libri

Opus 2020-229: Plow and Crown: The Return of the Nobles

During the feudal era in Europe you had no countries and few large cities.  Power was in the hands of a group of nobles.  They had become nobles because they had the swords and the ability to use them.  They promised to protect those under them in return for obedience.  Thus you had a few living in what they considered luxury and the masses living hand to mouth or worse.  Everything was based on personal power and pledges of loyalty.  Allegiances were constantly changing and life was dangerous.  During this time you saw the gradual development of nations and cities.

A noble would get enough power to call himself a king.  The nobles would support him as long as they felt like it but his only loyal army was a small group of knights and peasants who became his men at arms.  The king gained greater power by reaching out to the common people and the cities.  This gave him a base for the battle with the nobles.  What you had over time was a king with loyalty among the lower classes trying to bring the nobles into submission.  Sometimes it worked.  Usually it didn’t.

Today Donald Trump would have the part of the king, The Progressives* of both parties would be the nobles and then there are the rest of us, the common people.  What is going on now is that Trump is trying to side with the masses in order to keep the elites from taking all our liberty and making us into an aristocracy.  Everywhere you see them taking power under the banner of socialism you see emerging a society in which there is a small, exclusive group at the top living in obscene luxury and the masses struggling to stay alive.  Look at Cuba or Venezuela.  The Communist overlords don’t go without anything but the people are sorting through the trash piles and hunting rats for dinner.

It is what Antifa would like to see.  It is what the liberals are working for.  I don’t know how much attention you are paying to Portland and Seattle but you have Democrats in position of power doing everything they can to keep the violence and anarchy going.  The police are told to stand by and watch.  When they do arrest someone the local D.A., a Democrat, will release them with no bail before the police get the paperwork done.

The coming election is of vital importance to the future our children will face.  Pay attention to the local elections.  Have your politicians forced you to wear a mask?  Have they refused to allow the police to deal with violent insurrectionists.  They need to be removed and that starts at the local ballot box.

And don’t forget to vote for Trump while you are at it.

*(Liberals, educators, socialists, communists, elites, Rinos, Democrats, leftists, Never Trumpers, Antifa, etc)

homo unius libri

Opus 2020-228: Vast Wasteland

I am constantly reminded of why I don’t watch TV if I can help it.  At this point I am not evaluating the content, although that should be enough reason not to watch.  What keeps coming home to me is the amount of time wasted on posturing and self aggrandizement.  I have been trying to come out of my protective shell a little bit.  I have people telling me I need to watch this or that.  They send me links to interviews and documentaries.  I have watched a few.  Some are of value.  I could get the same value if a trustworthy source would cut out all the self advertising and bloviating.

Today I came across claims involving the CDC theoretically admitting that the China Virus deaths are grossly exaggerated.  One of the sources I found for information was a video by Ron Paul.  Sounds good.  He is a generally reliable source and a doctor.  So I clicked on the little arrow.  It was a 27 minutes video.  Three minutes into the video he and his co-host were still chewing the fat and socializing.  I went back to looking.  I don’t want to sit listening for 30 minutes to get what could be conveyed in 5.  It isn’t like I am listening to my wife.  I have no commitment to them.

So TV still has not won my heart.  I learned to read years ago and I can still read much faster than people can talk.  Factor in all the warm, fuzzy conversations and reading is far faster.  I am getting old and I don’t have time to waste on ego gratification.

homo unius libri

Opus 2020-227: Horseman #?

Most people have heard of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.  The source is the sixth chapter of Revelation.  In that chapter there are four horsemen and each is associated with different disasters.  The traditional names don’t necessarily match up, but that is the way tradition goes.

The first horse is white and seems associated with conquest which is strange because the second, on a red horse removes peace and set the killing going.  He is associated with war which seems the same as conquest, but noone asked me.  The third is on a black horse and carries a balance beam scale.  He is measuring out grain and is identified as famine.  The last horse is pale and the rider was Death.  With this is associated plague.

Trying to explain Biblical prophecy is a dangerous thing to do if you are at a Bible conference.  With what is going on I would wonder if we are in the midst of any of these horses.  My question would be “Does it matter?”  Would it change anything you do today or next week?  I think the purpose is to warn people and get them to think.  If you are afraid of the haunted house you will stay out even if it is not haunted.  If the yard has a “Beware of Dog” sign you will stay out even if they don’t have a dog.

If we are crippled by fear then we are in the reincarnation of the Black Death even if very few people are dying.

Pick a horse if you want.  Things may fall apart but we are not even close in the area of plague or war.

homo unius libri