Month: December 2018 (page 2 of 2)
Fifteen years ago this argument would have been considered well-intentioned. Ten years ago, naive. Five years ago outright stupid. Today? It sounds like lying to me.
Dan Crenshaw, who was just elected to the House, wrote this op-ed for the Washington Post criticizing President Trump’s decision to withdraw troops from Syria. Among his arguments is one that was made immediately after 9/11: that we have to fight the terrorists over there so that we don’t fight them here. At this time, in late 2018, could there be a lie more offensive to our intelligence than this?
Consider what is happening all across the West. There are now 30 million Muslims in continental Europe. A million Muslims a year pour into European countries — and most of them are young, sturdy, fighting-age men with a fighting, conquering mentality. The US and Canada are no different. Rapes, murders and terrorist attacks have now become common in Europe, even now in parts where violence was unheard of, like Sweden.
Under the surface, Europe has an ARMY of tens of millions of radicalized Muslim males. And as we see in France over and over again, they have access to weapons.
Does anybody feel safer?
Ever since the wars in Syria and Libya — which Western nations precipitated — millions of fighting-age “refugees” have fled to Europe and have begun the process of conquering the nations there.
Meanwhile, the US is being invaded from the Southern border and being conquered in its own way. Where the hell is the military to defend our nation?
To say that the American and European governments have created a policy to prevent Muslims from bringing the fight to our homelands is an outright lie. The governments welcome these very people with refugee status, give them free government benefits and housing, and do nothing to tighten our immigration laws. There will be war in our homelands, and the banal tropes of those like Crenshaw will be powerless to stop it. If he were serious about protecting America, he would call for an immigration ban on Muslims, strong border security, and propose a plan for deporting the Muslims that are already here.
As for President Trump, let us consider two facts:
- The President is representing the will of the people, which is overwhelmingly against troop deployments in Syria. Sometimes I think the President is the only one on the federal payroll who understands that democratically-elected governments must take into consideration the actual will of the people when forming policy. Crenshaw appears to be one of many who are uninterested in representing the American people.
- The Congress had already voted — under President Obama — to explicitly NOT authorize troop deployments in Syria. This means that these deployments are illegal under the War Powers Act and President Trump is legally bound to end them. He is merely doing what the law requires of him.
During the Christmas season it is common for us to become so busy with preparations and such that we lose focus on the reason for it all. So, we should make time for meditation to keep us grounded in the true meaning of Christmas, and what we are celebrating. It’s not going to happen automatically; we must set aside the time and make the effort.
To that end, I’ve found this Marian hymn to be helpful, and is probably my favorite Advent hymn. It was written in 16th century Germany and is still frequently sung at Mass today. When I was a child I never thought much of it; it seemed a little boring to be frank. But I guess age has a way of changing our tastes, and now when I hear the hymn it brings back memories of those years hearing the handful of choir members singing it at Sunday night Mass.
I enjoy listening to hymns in their native tongue, and so here is the Vienna Boys Choir (1977) singing it in the church of Maria am Gestade in Vienna. Maria am Gestade is an old church — completed in the early 15th century — and although it survived the wars it does show itself to look a bit tired, dusty and with the shine worn off; yet, still perfectly serviceable… if only people would come and bring their joys and sorrows to the altar, where Our Lord so desires to pour out His inexhaustible consolation.
A few loops of that and you have yourself a nice meditation there.
Or, if you prefer the English translation… there is a nice performance by Frederica von Stade, or even a solo a capella version.
Aren’t you glad somebody wrote that song for you so many centuries ago?
I am convinced that Americans are the biggest group of cucks in the world.
This point is raised by a recent story involving that fraud Ilhan Omar. Omar is a Somali who got dumped into Minnesota as a “refugee” thanks to Bill Clinton’s stupidity. Aren’t refugees supposed to go back eventually? Well she became a naturalized citizen and since parts of Minnesota now have a large Muslim population — thanks to dumping Somalis everywhere under our insane “refugee” system — she was just elected to represent a district in the US House of Representatives. Omar — who committed immigration fraud and the state crime of bigamy by marrying her brother — is now trying to get the rules of the House changed so she can wear her hijab in the chamber.
Taken aback by this, E.W. Jackson — a conservative pastor living in Virginia — remarked on his radio show that “The floor of Congress is now going to look like an Islamic republic.”
To which Ms. Omar quipped:
And folks, she’s not kidding. There are parts of Minneapolis that are called Little Mogadishu.
Give them credit, at times they can forthrightly broadcast their intentions.
And here are some points that show how America is stupid:
- People who come to this country and become naturalized citizens should not be able to vote until at least the second or third generation — probably more if they’re coming from a non-European country. The idea that they would be permitted to RUN FOR OFFICE is insane. Only Americans can be so naive as to think that simply crossing the border makes one “an American” who will vote to uphold the traditions and culture of the nation.
- Americans don’t understand that Islam is a political system masquerading as a religion. It is a political system no less pernicious than communism. When Muslims have control they set up sharia law, and you have no choice but to obey it. That’s NOT simply a religion — that’s a political system and it clearly upends the American system established here from the beginning.
Jackson continued: “Now, don’t get me wrong, I believe in the freedom of religion, I believe in the First Amendment, but I’ll tell you what, I’m not voting for a Muslim to serve in any office.” God bless his Boomer heart, but can he really not see, even at this late hour, that “freedom of religion” is going to be the death of us all? What happens when there are more of them to vote than him?
Americans are having their own country conquered right before their eyes, and they’re even inviting the conquerors and paying for their welfare! C-U-C-K-S!
Sometime after the 1950s things began to go off the rails in regards to Christmas in America. But since we’re all about restoring our traditions around here, let’s get things back on track.
First, a primer of where we are. From what I see, the merchants of the country have managed to commercialize the holiday and have pushed the season of Christmas — which they refer to as “the holidays” — from just after Thanksgiving to December 25. For all intents and purposes, they have established this month-long period as an extended shopping spree under the guise of a festive “season”. Therefore, the Christmas decorations and “holiday music” on the radios, etc. go up immediately after Thanksgiving. And they all come down on December 26.
I recall a particular radio station in the area that began 24-hour “holiday” music very early in December or late November. And I remember when I was driving home after midnight on Christmas night, they had switched back to their ordinary pop music format. I was furious because I couldn’t help but feel that they “used” the people’s holiday and then, like a switch, moved on. You see this also in the malls and stores, where immediately after Christmas the decorations come down.
Why, it’s almost like the merchants of the country aren’t even Christian… but love to abuse the Christian’s holy day to extract money from their bank accounts.
This is all completely backwards; and let us explore why that is.
The Church’s liturgical calendar year begins with Advent, which typically starts about 3-4 weeks before Christmas. (Or, more precisely, Advent begins on the Sunday closest to November 30.) What is Advent? To understand that we have to remember what we are celebrating at Christmas: the coming of our Lord into this world. As such, Advent is the period of preparation before the coming of our Lord. It mimics the darkness that the world was in before our Lord came. In that sense, it is a solemn and penitential season, commonly called a “mini-Lent”. During this time, Christmas lights and trees and carols and parties and festivities are quite inappropriate.*
This is also reflected in the readings at the Mass. On the First Sunday of Advent we hear about the end of the world and the Second Coming. Why? Because as we prepare to commemorate the First Coming of our Lord at Christmas, it is an appropriate time to prepare ourselves for the judgment at the Second Coming (or, more likely, to prepare for our personal judgment at our death). The readings at the Second and Third Sundays of Advent recall the penitential life of St. John the Baptist who lived as “a voice crying out in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way for the Lord.'” And finally, the Fourth Sunday of Advent brings us right up to the Incarnation nine months before Christmas and gives us that sense of anticipation.
So what’s the point?
The world says that you celebrate Christmas beginning at Thanksgiving, and you do it for a month. On the other hand, the tradition is that we spend this month reflecting on the darkness of the world before the coming of Christ. The short, dark days of the season accentuate that reflection. So there must be a time of penance before the celebration of Christmas. Can one feast without first fasting? Can one harvest without first planting? Can you have Easter Sunday before Good Friday? See how backwards and materialistic the world is?
Don’t let them take Advent from you! It is a spiritually powerful time of the year.
Now that we know what Advent is, what can we say about Christmas? Does it end at the stroke of midnight on December 26, as our new culture-setting overlords tell us? Nope, they’re wrong again. Christmas is not just a day but a season, the length of which depends on how you see it.
For most major feasts, the Church establishes an octave for celebration. An octave is simply eight days. So the Octave of Christmas runs from December 25 through January 1, and the Church book-ends this octave with two holy days of obligation. This eight-day period is the Christmas feast proper. For many, Christmas will run for twelve days, to the Feast of the Epiphany (January 6). For others, the season extends to the Feast of the Baptism of Our Lord (January 13), and this is pretty much a hard limit for when Christmas decorations are expected to come down and Christmas hymns are no longer sung. In the older tradition (before the changes in the 1960s), the season of Christmastide lasts for 40 days, which takes us to the Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Presentation of the Lord on February 2, which is more simply known as Candlemas.
So, that’s the skinny on that.
Perhaps at another time we can contemplate how they’ve managed to also wreck Christmas by secularizing its carols and symbols to the point that our Lord is practically an afterthought.
(* Since we have to live in the world, a common compromise is to begin putting up decorations sometime in the first and second weeks of Christmas, and keep Christmas carols for just before December 25. I put my lights up on the Feast of St. Nicholas, December 6, and leave them up until Epiphany.)
This news story comes to us from Scotland:
And yes, it is as dumb as it sounds:
Gingerbread men have been replaced by gingerbread persons in the Scottish Parliament’s coffee shop in case the traditional name causes offence.
The move comes as a strategy aimed at stamping out sexual harassment and sexism…
(Story here.)
So let’s recap. Western nations are being invaded by third-world immigrants who are raping and killing the native populations; government debt is so overwhelming that economies are on the verge of collapse; Russia and China are building their armed forces to exert political power over world affairs… and what the hell are our leaders doing? Banning gingerbread men, of course. Somebody might be offended!
One interesting thing about alcohol is that it is soluble in water. So, for example, if one part methanol (fuel) is mixed with two parts water, the methanol is dissolved enough to the point that it can’t ignite. To extinguish a methanol fire, you can dilute it with about nine parts water for one part methanol.
The Catholic Faith is like alcohol in this regard. If you water it down… and water down the teaching… and water down the rituals and liturgies, eventually it loses its flammability and become inert in the culture.
And that’s where we are today. People don’t know and understand their faith anymore. It has become “watered-down” with sappy, humanistic ideas, and because of that, Christianity today no longer moves the nations to pursue a higher plane of existence for its people. This milquetoast version is, in the aggregate, incapable of inflaming souls and driving them to higher virtue.
Don’t believe me? Just look at art today. Compare it to 500 years ago. Or look at the new church buildings with their banal, open, community-focused ugly architecture and compare it to churches made even as little as a century ago, where art, beauty, regalness, strength and acoustics were all prominent factors in design.
This is why today, perhaps more than ever, we have to make the time to learn our Faith and put it in to practice. It’s no longer good enough to simply live in the culture and absorb it passively. No, we have to transform the culture.
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