John Bennett on the "Winter Holiday" Crap

Yep--about what I think, it is:

Multiculturalism creates a neurotic and dishonest society.

This is seen very plainly during the Christmas season. Those of us who celebrate Christmas are told that we must rip the very core of this season out, and replace it with a phony, soulless thing called "Holiday" or "Winter." This is dishonest because nobody celebrates winter. "Holiday" is a shallow term to describe Christmas; the term abuses language to impose a false meaning on a reality that most of us cherish.

"Holiday" and "Winter" are weasel words used by cultural appeasers who are too ashamed of their own culture to say what everybody knows to be true. That is, that most of us are celebrating Christmas. Maintaining Christmas is part of preserving the culture that gave us almost everything that we have worth keeping. The whole name-changing charade is neurotic because it forces people to pretend that our majority culture is not what it actually is.

[snip]

Make no mistake about it, those who rip Christmas out of public life are duplicitous and exploitative, no matter what they claim their victim status to be, and no matter how noble their motives. It is duplicitous to attack the majority culture under the pretense of tolerance, when the outcome of the ostensible tolerance is to be intolerant of the majority culture. It is exploitative to use privileged victim status to enforce personal preferences at the expense of a profoundly important cultural and, yes, religious observance. There are few things more self-centered than using privileged victim status to erase part of the culture one finds themselves in.

[snip]

At root, this toxic tolerance and holiday madness is produced by blending multicultural appeasement with a thoughtless liberal notion of equality- not equality brought about by merit or based on majority norms, but equality brought about by government coercion, leveling, and betraying the majority culture.

[snip]

We in America, and in the West as a whole, need to stop apologizing for our culture. We –or more accurately those who came before us- have created something great, and that is why people leave their non-Christian nations to come here and to other Western nations. How dare anyone say they have a right to the benefits of our society while at the same time attacking the root of our culture?

The norm needs to be reinforced: At Christmas time, we are celebrating the birth of the historical figure who gave rise to our culture, Jesus Christ. We who celebrate Christmas should be vocal in saying that we are offended when Christmas is ripped out of public life. Those who do not celebrate can bloody well not celebrate. It is selfish and insulting to demand that the majority alter something sacred, simply for the convenience or comfort of an unreasonable minority.

"Those who do not celebrate can bloody well not celebrate." That works for me. You don't like the holiday, save the money, don't buy the gifts, don't waste your time at the parade. Go light a winter solstice bonfire or something, if you can find a place that's legal to do it. Don't act like a DARNFOOL and insist that the rest of the society you live in alter the holiday to suit your tastes and preferences.

Of Course It's Unconstitutional

At the risk of being called a "Tenther" by folks who give no indication whatsoever of having read The Federalist Papers and The Anti-Federalist Papers and possibly not even the Constitution itself, I must note that Henry Hudson's ruling that Obamacare's "individual mandate" is unconstitutional is something of a no-brainer for anyone who's actually read those documents.

I'm very serious. The issues involved are not complex, not hard to understand at all. You might want to start with, say, Federalist 41.

Anyone who tells you Obamacare is constitutional is either ignorant as, ah, aitch-ee-double-toothpicks or lyin' through their insertyourexpletiveofchoicehere teeth. Or possibly just dumber than a bag of hammers.

I Swear I Run into These People All the Time

Michelle Malkin describes a conversation (links in the original) the likes of which I've had, in person and electronically, waaaaaaay too many times. The sort of conversation wherein someone who thinks he knows something about Christianity and/or Christians does nothing so much as reveal what a buffoon he is.

Here’s the errrrrrudite liberal journo Richard Wolffe mocking Sarah Palin for citing famed, beloved Christian author, novelist, lay theologian, and apologist C.S. Lewis as a source of divine inspiration (via The Daily Caller):

Incredibly, Wolffe derides the author of “Mere Christianity,” “The Abolition of Man,” “The Screwtape Letters,” and so many other seminal works as merely a writer of “a series of kids’ books” in order to jab at Palin.

Fellow Palin-basher Chris Matthews tried to save Wolffe from himself by counseling him not to “put down” Lewis. Wolffe ignored him.

When I think of Wolffe and his smug media peers in the intellectual establishment, I think of Lewis’s brilliant musings on Men Without Chests.

He had them pegged.

[snip]

Brian Faughnan called Wolffe out on Twitter. Here was his response. Seriously:

She said “divine inspiration”. Not the traditional reaction to theological essays, even formidable ones by Lewis.

And here’s a reminder again of Wolffe said on MSNBC:

WOLFFE: “Look, divine inspiration from a series of KIDS’ BOOKS. I don’t think, um, C.S. Lewis really would want that.”

MATTHEWS: “But…I wouldn’t put down C.S. Lewis down…”

Wolffe sputters about Newsmax, which Palin says she reads, before again hitting at Palin for — gasp! — drawing religious lessons from a profoundly religious author.

Not to be uncharitable, but it certainly appears that Mr. Wolffe was completely unfamiliar with Lewis' philosophical and scholarly stature, apparently thinking of him "merely" as an author of children's books.

I can't tell you how many times I've seen crap like this.

People telling me this or that about the text or the canon of scripture--blissfully unaware, every one of them, that I've almost certainly read more on the subject than they are aware exists, and that assertions and arguments with which I'm not familiar are DARNFEW and almost certainly of no significance--that is, yes, I think I have at least a lay-level understanding of all the significant arguments. Darn near every one of them relying on pseudo-scholarship that has been discredited for decades (in some cases, for centuries). More than a few relying on half-remembered misinformation from authors that are regarded by more accomplished scholars as little more than bad jokes.

I had one "idiot"--actually, he was a friend of mine, and a fellow member of Mensa--tell me over and over again about the canon of scripture. I had never heard quite the theory he was spouting, and eventually, I asked him for the source. Turned out his wife--a wee snip of a girl probably not more than twenty at the time--had heard it in some college class on religion. Couldn't cite an author, couldn't cite any source, couldn't even remember the teacher's name. But shoot, he thought his wife's half-remembered, probably garbled, "information" from only-God-knows-who was authoritative. That kind of thinking is why I just referred to him as an "idiot," despite his demonstrably above-average I.Q.

I'll be blunt: the number of non-Christians I've encountered who have more than a blithering idiot's understanding of canonicity, textual criticism, textual reliability, sola scriptura, basic Christian theology, Christians, even religious history in general, is exactly zero. They gaily spout criticisms they found in the writings of some pop-culture dipstick as though they were Holy Writ, and never, ever, ever exert themselves to see if anyone has a comeback.

They have never read F.F. Bruce. Never even heard of him.

They have never read Van Til. Never even heard of him.

They have never read Norman Geisler on apologetics. Never even heard of him.

They have never read Webster and King. Never even heard of them.

They have never read Metzger. Never even heard of him.

They have never read Zacharias. Never even heard of him.

They have never read Schaeffer. Never even heard of him.

They have never read Kreeft, they have never read Augustine, they have never read Johnson, they have never read Morris, they have never read Morison, they have never read Kaiser, they have never read Luther, they have never read Calvin, they have never read Bunyan, they have never read Piper.

A few--darn few--will have heard of Josh McDowell, but if they've read a sentence he's written, it will be nothing more than his famous tract, "More Than a Carpenter."

Most of them have not even read the Bible and saying that they have only the most tenous grasp of what it says is being extremely charitable.

Oh, there are such non-Christians out there, non-Christians who've made themselves familiar with at least some of these, or other, authors. I am not saying otherwise. But the ones I meet? No. They are not familiar with these authors, indeed, with any authors critical of their hilariously misinformed and one-sided views of scripture, Christianity and Christians. They have not made the smallest effort to become familiar with them. They have not made the smallest effort to even find out if such people exist. Yet they expect me to take their opinions seriously.

Anymore, though, I don't spend a whole lot of time trying to disabuse those folks of their quaint little notions. I don't generally recommend books anymore. I just tell them what the Bible says. I have come to see, per the first chapter of Romans, that these folks' problem is analogous to the sighted man who goes outside and says he doesn't see a sky.

He knows it's there. He can see it. Everybody can see it. It's obvious, so obvious that when he denies it's there, nobody bothers to try to convince him otherwise. Nobody tries to argue for the sky's existence from the evidence. They just look at him as though he's deranged and go about their business.

People that don't believe in God are like this. They know He's there. They can see it. Everything in creation points to His existence. It's obvious. You can try to argue with them all day long, but it's pointless. Their problem isn't the evidence, which is abundant and clear. Their problem is that they don't want to see.

Hey, man, don't blame me. I got it from Paul, who got it from God.

Diana West on the Value of Wikileaks

I am not happy about the material that was leaked to Julian Assange. I am no legal scholar and am not prepared to offer an opinion as to whether the actions of those involved amount to espionage. I am not even prepared to offer a firm opinion about the nature of the damage that was done to this country by these leaks. I have read more than one opinion from conservative authors, some holding that the leaks fatally compromise other countries' confidence in our ability to keep secrets, others suggesting that the leaks demonstrate the folly of having homosexuals in the military, others saying that the leaks reveal only what everybody probably already knew or suspected anyway.

Diana West, delightfully independent and incisive thinker that she is, offers some of the most interesting commentary, of which I provide a small sample:

One running theme that emerges from the leaked cables is that the U.S. government consistently obscures the identity of the nation's foes, for example, depicting the hostile peoples of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States as "allies." It's not that such hostility is a secret, or even constitutes news. But the cables reveal that our diplomats actually recognize that these countries form the financial engine that drives global jihad, or, as they mincingly prefer to call it, "terrorism." But they, with the rest of the government, keep the American people officially in the dark

[snip]

Whether such information was originally "classified," the body politic should be electrified by the fact, as revealed by the leaked cables, that nations from Pakistan to Afghanistan to Saudi Arabia are regularly discussed as black holes of infinite corruption into which American money gushes, either through foreign aid or oil revenue, and unstaunched and unstaunchable sources of terror or terror-financing. If this were to get out -- and guess what, it did -- the foreign policy of at least the past two administrations, Democrat and Republican alike, would be unmasked as a colossal failure.

Now, again, for those who wonder: I am not at all opposed to fighting terrorism. My main concerns have been that we ought, before fighting wars, to declare them in the constitutionally prescribed fashion, and that we not try fighting terrorism by trying to change a centuries-old culture to which millions upon millions of people are devoted. It is not at all realistic to suppose that we will secure freedom from terrorism by turning nations and peoples that have never shown any interest in government as the protector of the God-given rights of all men--believer and non-believer alike--into American-style representative republics. That is a fool's errand. Like it or not, American-style representative government is based squarely on a Judeo-Christian worldview, and its originators said repeatedly that it would not work without a people devoted to such a view (a state that we are too close to achieving, in my view). There is not the proverbial snowball's chance that it is going to work in Dar al Islam, but making it work there is the basis of much of our foreign policy.

Hard to Argue With That...

Doug Giles writeth:

I have a dream!

A dream where instead of reading about a cute college coed left dead and naked out in a vacant lot or bloated and floating in a river, the story reads: “dead jackass found double-tapped and dead on the curb as his soul wings its way to Hades—all because he messed with the wrong mama.”

A dream where it’s normal for girls to know Jiu-Jitsu and mixed martial arts. A dream where they can shoot golf ball sized groups with their .38 at 15 feet. A dream where they have a BS detector that’s so sensitive they can read people and environments with godlike clarity within a nanosecond.

Personally, I'd recommend RyuTe instead of jujutsu or MMA, but that's a picayune criticism. I'm all for as many women as possible being armed, trained, and ready to defend themselves.

Why Sarah Palin Worries So Many People

I've read so much awful stuff about Sarah Palin lately, both from the Left and the Right (you would not believe how many people putatively on the Right absolutely despise Sarah Palin). After reading so much of that stuff, folks can be forgiven for wondering exactly what it is about the woman that results in Palin Derangement Syndrome. I've written on this before, but let me lay it out in a nutshell for you, in case you were wondering:

It has relatively little to do with whether or not she's going to run for president. It's the population segment she appeals to. The woman's exactly like millions upon millions of what were once considered perfectly normal Americans. Liberals and Leftists and certain Elites that mostly hang out with their buddies that think, act, and speak just like themselves have a hard time accepting this. Confronted with Sarah Palin's popularity with millions of Americans--yes, I know about the polling, about even numbers disapprove and approve, those that strongly disapprove are about double those that strongly approve, all of that is irrelevant to the point that I'm making--those Liberals, Leftists, and Elites are left going, "Holy Crap! There's a buttload of those people, and they all think we're full of crap and they're sick of our...schtuff! What are we gonna do?"

It's hard to run roughshod over millions of people, not that the attempt won't be--or isn't being--made. Sarah Palin's popularity forcibly confronts some people with a hard reality that they don't want to face--namely, that, no, the American public isn't anywhere nearly as solidly on their side as they would like to pretend to themselves, that a rather large segment of the population thinks they're full of bovine fecal matter.

There you have it. Just my two cents.

Listen, Dumb Mass...

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The title, of course, is not universally applicable. But if the foo--ahem--wear it.

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Y'know, I really do pity some people. They think they live in a world where Republicans routinely champion big business and Democrats routinely favor the little guy. They think that Republicans are warmongers and Democrats are peacemakers. They think that Republicans are censorious and Democrats favor freedom of expression.

The reality is considerably more complex.

I'd love to say that there is such a thing as a "pure" conservative or a "pure" liberal. It'd sure as thunder make political blogging a lot simpler. But there probably hasn't been a "pure" conservative since Edmund Burke, and even he might not qualify by some people's definitions, and when you have the likes of flaming, hell-bent-for-leather, far left Ted Rall screaming that Barack Obama is just another right wing warmonger, it ought to be getting clear to you that finding a "pure" liberal isn't easy, either.

Shoot. I'm tired tonight. But let me spell it out for you, ye who see no further than Democrats good, Republicans bad. I'll try to use small words.

In the real world, all political parties, especially the big ones, and most especially the main two, the Republicans and the Democrats, are simply coalitions of people with widely--widely!--disparate interests. They band together to promote candidates and policies, and all those candidates and policies are, at best, compromises between those disparate interests, with the end result being that the candidates each party runs are often only mildly less repugnant to any given party member than the candidates the opposition runs.

No Republican represents the thinking or behavior of all Republicans. It can't be done.

No Democrat represents the thinking or behavior of all Democrats. It can't be done.

What do you do with the guy who's into Far Eastern martial disciplines and is moving steadily toward growing more vegetables, learning about canning, drying, and preserving nutrient-dense whole, traditional foods--and is simultaneously a Southern Baptist, free-market, anti-free-trade, Constitutional constructionist?

What do you do with a different guy, another one who's into Far Eastern martial disciplines, likes guns, thinks his oncologist son-in-law deserves to make potloads of money, and favors universal health care?

What do you do with the conservatives that are anti-war, America-firsters?

What do you do with the liberals and neocons that are agitating for war--or at least a show of force--vis-a-vis North Korea?

What about the pro-free-market, pro-choice Republicans?

What about the Pink Pistols?

What about the Log Cabin Republicans?

What about the anti-illegal-immigration union members?

What about the--admittedly rare--pro-life Democrats? What about pro-life, pro-universal-health-care Democrats?

What about the big agribusinesses that actually welcome increased regulatory burdens because they have the effect of killing off smaller competitors--competitors that, incidentally, are often responsible for a lot of the locally-grown, naturally-raised foods that--allegedly--more liberal types favor? Lord have mercy, there are people in this world simple enough to believe that a vote against more government regulation of the food business is necessarily a vote against food safety.

What about the likes of Monsanto? Have you heard or read about them and soybeans? If not, google it--and then ask yourself whether being against that sort of thing is being anti-big-business or pro-free-market-competition.

Have you ever heard of veggie libel laws? If not, google that--and then ask yourself whether such things are anti-libel or anti-First Amendment.

What about homeschoolers? Are they Christian zealots or are they just trying to avoid being indoctrinated by "the man?"

God knows--only God knows--what the modern Democratic Party would do with the likes of Andrew Jackson. Only God knows what the modern Republican Party would do with the likes of Abraham Lincoln.

It is a darn weird world when Blacks persistently vote against the party that was anti-slavery, and when the party that tolerated "Sheets" Byrd for decades lambasts its opposition as "racist."

There are conservatives who think they're libertarians, libertarians who claim to be conservatives, FDR-style-big-government Republicans who publicly profess an attachment to small government, socially-conservative union activists, and so forth. The reality is that the political world is one heckuva lot more complex than Democrats good, Republicans bad (or vice versa), and to my mind, one of the hallmarks, one of the distinguishing characteristics, of the true Dumb Mass is the persistent attempt to paint it more simply than it really is.