The Unholy Trinity: Me, Myself and I

“We have learned to live with unholiness and have come to look upon it as the natural and expected thing.” – A. W. Tozer, 1897-1963

“The uncontested absurdities of today are the accepted slogans of tomorrow. They come to be accepted by degrees, by dint of constant pressure on one side and constant retreat on the other – until one day when they are suddenly declared to be the country’s official ideology.” – Ayn Rand, 1905-1982

There are many across America who are concerned about morality. Morality is defined as:

Principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behavior.

There are those who believe that morality is a non-binding social construct determined by the individual himself (if it feels good do it). Morality is relative and defined by the individual man not by any higher authority be it law (government) or God (religion).

There are others who believe that morality (a overwhelming majority of moral men) is fundamental to a healthy society. Many believe that morality is objective and defined by the laws of nature (God) and the laws of man (the U.S. Constitution).

Has morality changed over time, and if so, in what ways?

In May, 2017 Gallop issued a report titled “Americans Hold Record Liberal Views on Most Moral Issues.” Gallop showed the changes in “liberal views” on “morally acceptable” issues starting in 2001 (unless otherwise indicated) to May, 2017.

First year asked 2017 Change
% % pct. pts.
More liberal views
Gay/Lesbian relations 40 63 +23
Having a baby outside of marriage (2002) 45 62 +17
Sex between an unmarried man and woman 53 69 +16
Divorce 59 73 +14
Medical testing on animals 65 51 -14
Polygamy (2003) 7 17 +10
Human embryo stem cell research (2002) 52 61 +9
Doctor-assisted suicide 49 57 +8
Cloning humans 7 14 +7
Pornography (2011) 30 36 +6
Suicide 13 18 +5
Death penalty 63 58 -5
Sex between teenagers (2013) 32 36 +4
No change
Extramarital affairs 7 9 +2
Gambling (2003) 63 65 +2
Birth control (2012) 89 91 +2
Abortion 42 43 +1
Cloning animals 31 32 +1
Animal fur clothing (buying/wearing) 60 57 -3
Items were first asked in 2001 unless indicated.

NOTE: Figures above are percentages saying practice is morally acceptable

GALLUP

What does this shift toward “Liberal Views” mean?

Let’s look at the top “liberal views” that Gallop reported: gay/lesbian relations (+23%), having a baby outside of marriage (+17%), sex between an unmarried man and woman (+16%), divorce (+14%), polygamy (+10%).

What do these liberal views do for society?

The Witherspoon Institute published an article titled “Manhood Is Not Natural” by Glenn T. Stanton.  Mr. Stanton notes:

Few would disagree that manhood is in crisis today. Men are falling behind women in important measures of personal and social well-being. This is well-documented in books such as Hannah Rosin’s bluntly titled The End of Men. In deeply consequential ways, they have become the weaker sex.

Some women celebrate this. Most, however, are deeply concerned, especially since the weakness of the men in their lives makes it increasingly difficult for them to become wives and mothers. The equation is really quite simple: if boys don’t become good, dependable men, they can’t become good, dependable husbands and fathers.

Why is it important for men to become good (moral), dependable husbands and fathers?

Mr. Stanton explains in the section of his column titled “What Happens When Manhood Isn’t Taught?”:

It is then certainly no coincidence that the term “feminization of poverty” was coined as the sexual revolution initiated the great divorce between sex, babies, and marriage. Feminist scholar Diane Pearce, who introduced this term in an important essay, lamented that while large opportunities were opening for women due to greater equality, “Poverty is rapidly becoming a female problem.” She blamed the significant increase in the number of female-headed families.

Ghettos are not created by city planners, crime by the police, or failing health by big pharma. Each of these social ills arises by inattention to the sexual behaviors of males. If he doesn’t have to marry before having sex (and potentially fathering children), the average man won’t. So he hasn’t. The feminization of poverty and the accompanying declines in female happiness and childhood well-being are the tragic results. [Emphasis added]

Men have, according to the Gallup report, fully embraced the unholy trinity of me, myself and I.

Are “Liberal Views” Good for America?

In Manhood in the Making, anthropologist David Gilmore provides an essential insight:

One of my findings here is that manhood ideologies always include a criterion of selfless generosity, even to the point of sacrifice. Again and again, we find that “real” men are those who give more than they take away; they serve others. Real men are generous, even to a fault. Non-men are often those stigmatized as stingy and unproductive.

Stanton notes,

“A good man is the fountain, not the drain. The formation of such men is the first task of human civilization, and its largest threat when ignored.”

Stanton asks,

“The question is, how can we recover manhood today? We must find the answer. For it is not only the fate of men that is at stake, but the fate of our women, children, and society as well.”

Homosexuality, the lack of fathers in families, promiscuity, divorce and polygamy are all warning signs of a larger existential threat, the deformation of men. These now commonplace “liberal views” turned into policies and practices inextricably lead men to pursue lives that are all about me, myself and I, the unholy trinity.

As John Adams wrote,

“Public virtue cannot exist in a Nation without private Virtue, and public Virtue is the only Foundation of Republics.”

We as a society ignore prive virtue and morality at our own risk. It is time to restore the first task of human civilization – the formation of virtuous and moral men.

RELATED ARTICLES:

The War Against Morality, Women and Children

How George Washington’s Sterling Character Set an Example for the Ages

EDITORS NOTE: Glenn T. Stanton is the director of global family formation studies at Focus on the Family and the author of eight books on various aspects of the family, including The Ring Makes All the Difference: The Hidden Consequences of Cohabitation and the Strong Benefits of Marriage and Loving My LGBT Neighbor: Being Friends in Grace and Truth.

Supreme Court Tellingly Rejects Lower Court Roadblock to Elimination of DACA Program

On Dec. 20, in an unsigned, four-page opinion, the Supreme Court struck down a lower court order that severely burdened efforts by the Trump administration to end the Obama administration’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which has shielded certain younger illegal aliens from deportation.

This is good news, a helpful sign that the Supreme Court will not give unelected judges carte blanche to hamstring the federal government’s legitimate efforts to enforce immigration law restrictions, consistent with the current statutory law.

Continuation of DACA offends the rule of law. As Heritage Foundation scholar Hans von Spakovsky has explained, DACA should be eliminated as a matter of law:  “Why? Because the president doesn’t have the authority to decide who should be in the United States legally when it comes to immigrants. That power resides entirely in Congress [because] . . . the Constitution says it.”

In short, allowing a category of illegal aliens not to be deported requires an act of Congress, not an arbitrary presidential decision.

DACA was established in 2012 by a Department of Homeland Security memorandum. It applied to a large number of young illegal aliens who met certain conditions: they illegally entered the U.S. before the age of 16; were under the age of 31; had “continuously” resided in the U.S. since June 15, 2007; and were in school, graduated, or honorably discharged from the military.

DACA provided a period of deferred action (a promise that the alien would not be deported) as well as access to certain government benefits (including work authorizations, Medicare, Social Security, and the earned income tax credit). The period of deferred action was initially for two years, but that period was extended to three years by a second DHS memorandum on Nov. 14, 2014.

The Trump administration took a different approach. On Sept. 5, then-acting DHS Secretary Elaine Duke issued a new memorandum terminating the DACA program and all benefits provided under it effective March 18, 2018, unless President Donald Trump provides another extension of the program or Congress passes a bill addressing the issue.

The acting secretary stated that her determination was based in part on the attorney general’s conclusion that DACA was unlawful and likely would be enjoined in potentially imminent litigation.

Shortly thereafter, the administration found itself in a legal battle. Five related lawsuits challenging the acting secretary’s Sept. 5 determination were filed in a federal district lower court in California. The suits argued that the determination violated the Administrative Procedure Act (which governs the way in which federal administrative agencies may propose and establish regulations), and denied affected aliens due process and equal protection under the law.

On Oct. 17, the district court issued an order accepting plaintiffs’ contention that the 256-page record DHS used to support its Sept. 5 determination was “incomplete.” In so doing, the court imposed an enormous burden on the government, ordering it to turn over all “emails, letters, memoranda, notes, media items, opinions and other materials” that fell into several broad categories.

The Justice Department unsuccessfully challenged this ruling before the largely liberal 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and then appealed to the Supreme Court.

In its short unsigned opinion, the Supreme Court held that, before imposing its heavy-handed documentary request, the district court first should have ruled on the government’s two “serious” threshold arguments—that the decision to terminate DACA was unreviewable under the Administrative Procedure Act because it was “committed to agency discretion,” and that the Immigration and Nationality Act deprived the lower court of jurisdiction.

As the court explained, “[e]ither of those arguments, if accepted, likely would eliminate the need for the [d]istrict [c]ourt to examine a complete administrative record.”

Accordingly, the Supreme Court ordered the district court to rule on the government’s threshold arguments and certify its ruling for immediate appeal “if appropriate.” Thereafter, if the case was not dismissed, the district court and the 9th Circuit “may consider whether narrower amendments to the record are appropriate.” The Supreme Court concluded by stating that its order “does not suggest any view on the merits of” the case.

In sum, although the Supreme Court has removed (for now) one unnecessary burden to elimination of DACA, the final judicial word has not been said. Let us hope that, in considering this case, the federal courts remember that it is their job to construe the law and say what it is—not to impose their subjective immigration policy preferences on the American people.

Portrait of Alden Abbott

Alden Abbott

Alden Abbott is deputy director of the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies and the John, Barbara, and Victoria Rumpel Senior Legal Fellow. Read his research. Twitter: @AldenAbbott1.

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Refugee Resettlement Watch: A decade in review!

Everyone is doing year-end reviews this week, and I’ll do a roundup on New Years Day for 2017, but I thought this would be interesting especially for new readers.

Refugee Resettlement Watch launched in the summer of 2007 and here are the Top Ten most visited posts for the decade (in descending order):

  1. Watch the death of Europe in 19 minutes…. (2015)
  2. Amarillo, TX being destroyed by refugee overload (2016)
  3. Why so many Somalis in Minneapolis? (2011)
  4. In first six weeks of FY2016 we resettled 827 Somalis; all but one are Muslim (2015)
  5. UNHCR data confirms it: 75% of the so-called refugees arriving in Europe are MEN (2015)
  6. HUGE! Food stamp fraud bust in Baltimore, check out the names, see a pattern? (2016)
  7. How did we get so many Somali refugees—the numbers are telling (2008)
  8. Lutheran Social Service of Minnesota is responsible for the Somali chaos in St. Cloud (2015)
  9. Dead Somali ISIS fighter had ties to Lewiston, Maine (2014)
  10. Brussels is coming to a town near you! Time for a moratorium on Muslim migration to America! (2016)

Those above are the Top Ten most visited posts of the 8,922 posts archived here at RRW.

I encourage new readers to see the categories in the Left hand side bar, or use the search window with a few key words to learn more about how refugees are placed in America, where they are placed and the impact they are having on your community’s culture and security.

And, I think that we can conclude from the interest shown in certain posts that we all need to look to Europe as a model of what NOT to do about refugees and migration.

The Light in “Darkest Hour”

The Golden Globe Awards will be presented a week from Sunday; the Oscars on March 4. These star-studded and self-adulatory events are bound to be restrained by Hollywood’s year of scandal, and a friend in-the-know tells me she expects the celebrity presenters to redirect their anguish and frustration at – who else? – Donald Trump.

Meanwhile, there are 2017’s movies to be celebrated, and two – in my opinion, only two – stand out as truly praiseworthy. Whether or not either will receive a statuette, I neither know nor care.

The first is Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirkwhich I reviewed here upon its release in July. The second is Joe Wright’s Darkest Hour, a November release, which – for various reasons – I was unable to watch until the other day. (But note: As of December 22, the film is now in wide re-release.) Both films are set in 1940 and both detail the crisis that befell Great Britain at the start of World War II.

Indeed, the evacuation of 300,000 British military personnel from the beaches of northern France, which was the sole subject of Mr. Nolan’s film, is the background for Mr. Wright’s tale of Winston Churchill’s first months as Great Britain’s Prime Minister.

Churchill makes a kind of cameo at the end of Dunkirk, when a soldier – saved from certain death by the famous flotilla of private yachts – reads Churchill’s speech to Commons in which he expresses hope (faint hope as he spoke) that the New World will come to rescue of the Old “in God’s good time.” That speech also ends Darkest Hour.

Gary Oldman

Dunkirk is a superb film. Darkest Hour, however, surpasses it, not in every way – not in its scope or visual power – but in one particular way: the performance of Gary Oldman as Churchill.

It has been said of some performances that an actor disappears into a role, and never has that been more true than here. There was only one moment in Darkest Hour – surprisingly, a straight-on shot – when I actually glimpsed Mr. Oldman’s face. It was wonderfully jarring. But I never detected Oldman in mannerism or voice. He simply is Winston Churchill, and this owes much to the brilliance of the makeup artists, led by Kazuhiro Tsuji, who transformed Oldman into Churchill. (Apparently, Oldman had to talk the 47-year-old Tsuji out of “retirement” to do the job.)

I’ve seen four of Joe Wright’s other films, each of which I liked, but none prepared me for the brilliance of his work in Darkest Hour. Great films may be about great men and great events, as this one is, but a film’s greatness rests on things not “great” in the grand sense, especially in evocations of character, often – in film (as in real life) – revealed in small moments, micro gestures, and other details, visual and audible. A fine director and a great actor discover these things together, which is why film is the most collaborative of all the arts.

But the truest measure of Mr. Wright’s skill – with the able assistance of screenwriter Anthony McCarten, who in turn had the able assistance of Churchill’s speeches and copious writings – is the way he creates a high level of tension in a story the end of which we all know well.

The drama of getting “our boys” off the beaches of Dunkirk before they are slaughtered by advancing German forces is actually a subplot in Darkest Hour, in which the greater drama and finer details are in its account of Churchill’s conflicts with key members of his War Cabinet, especially Neville Chamberlain (Ronald Pickup), whom Winston has just replaced as Prime Minister, and with the Foreign Minister, Viscount Halifax (Stephen Dillane), who share a belief that Britain’s only hope in this darkest hour is, ultimately, a negotiated settlement with Adolf Hitler.

One understands why these men sought, as Chamberlain had earlier described it, “peace in our time.” The Allies, which did not yet include the United States, were losing – and badly – and Churchill’s 1940 optimism seemed nearly delusional.

Gary Oldman as Winston Churchill

To watch Oldman being Churchill being all but crushed by the weight of German successes and Allied failures is to witness what may be the best performance of the 21st century so far. To later watch Oldman’s Churchill rise up from near despair to a more refined optimism, one that rallied the British people to be steadfast in the battle against one of history’s greatest evils, is to be moved to tears.

But, of course, I cry easily.

In a scene that may or not portray actual events, Churchill takes his case for steadfastness and fortitude to the people. At the end of my review of Dunkirk, I wrote: “Tom Hardy wins the war!” (Mr. Hardy plays an RAF pilot giving air support during the Dunkirk evacuation.) Watching the scene in Darkest Hour I’m referring to here (but won’t go into to save the reader the pleasure of watching it with no diminishment of its impact), I thought: Winston rides the Underground! And wins the war!

What does either of these great films have to do with our Catholic thing? Nothing directly connected to the faith. (There IS one brief scene in which some nuns are seen walking along a London street. Anglican Benedictines probably.) Yet Darkest Hour is truly a spiritual experience.

Aquinas asks (ST, Q.123): “Whether fortitude is a virtue?” It is. Then: “Whether fortitude excels among all other virtues?” It does. Why? Because, St. Thomas explains, “fear of the danger of death has the greatest power to make man recede from the good of reason.” The danger of death . . . or of defeat.

The Angelic Doctor concludes by quoting one of his favorite sources, Aristotle, who notes, “just and brave men are most beloved, because they are most useful in war and peace.”

That was Winston Churchill.

Brad Miner

Brad Miner

Brad Miner is senior editor of The Catholic Thing, senior fellow of the Faith & Reason Institute, and Board Secretary of Aid to the Church In Need USA. He is a former Literary Editor of National Review. His new book, Sons of St. Patrick, written with George J. Marlin, is now on sale. The Compleat Gentleman, is available on audio.

RELATED VIDEO: The official trailer of “Darkest Hour.”

EDITORS NOTE: Mr. Oldman has received a Golden Globe nomination for his performance, but Darkest Hour did not receive a nomination as Best Drama nor did Mr. Wright in the director category. God willing, it will overcome its financial failure (budget: $30 million; receipts: $7.4 million) in its video releases. Darkest Hour is rated PG-13 (some rough language) and features fine supporting performances by Kristin Scott Thomas as Clementine Churchill and Lily James as Churchill’s secretary.

© 2017 The Catholic Thing. All rights reserved. For reprint rights, write to: info@frinstitute.orgThe Catholic Thing is a forum for intelligent Catholic commentary. Opinions expressed by writers are solely their own.

VIDEO: A Hallelujah Christmas

A Very Merry Christmas and May God Bless Us All.

LYRICS

“A Hallelujah Christmas”
(originally by Leonard Cohen)

I’ve heard about this baby boy
Who’s come to earth to bring us joy
And I just want to sing this song to you
It goes like this, the fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift
With every breath I’m singing Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, HallelujahA couple came to Bethlehem
Expecting child, they searched the inn
To find a place for You were coming soon
There was no room for them to stay
So in a manger filled with hay
God’s only Son was born, oh Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah

The shepherds left their flocks by night
To see this baby wrapped in light
A host of angels led them all to You
It was just as the angels said
You’ll find Him in a manger bed
Immanuel and Savior, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah

A star shown bright up in the east
To Bethlehem, the wisemen three
Came many miles and journeyed long for You
And to the place at which You were
Their frankincense and gold and myrrh
They gave to You and cried out Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah

I know You came to rescue me
This baby boy would grow to be
A man and one day die for me and you
My sins would drive the nails in You
That rugged cross was my cross, too
Still every breath You drew was Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah

New Report Finds Marcellus Shale Development Unrelated to Mortality Rates

Environmental groups have consistently been opposed the exploration for, extraction and use of fossil fuels. Since taking office President Trump has made embracing “energy dominance” part of his National Security Strategy:

Embrace Energy Dominance

For the first time in generations, the United States will be an energy-dominant nation. Energy dominance—America’s central position in the global energy system as a leading producer, consumer, and innovator—ensures that markets are free and U.S. infrastructure is resilient and secure. It ensures that access to energy is diversified, and recognizes the importance of environmental stewardship.

Access to domestic sources of clean, affordable, and reliable energy underpins a prosperous, secure, and powerful America for decades to come. Unleashing these abundant energy resources—coal, natural gas, petroleum, renewables, and nuclear—stimulates the economy and builds a foundation for future growth. Our Nation must take advantage of our wealth in domestic resources and energy efficiency to promote competitiveness across our industries.

Read more.

Environmentalists have raised a variety of issues related to fracking, the extraction of natural gas from oil shale. Environmentalists have pointed to health risks of fracking and pollution of groundwater supplies.

However, a new report debunks the healthcare issue. In the EIDhealth.org column “New Report Finds Marcellus Shale Development Unrelated To Pa. Mortality Rates” Nicole Jacobs reports:

Mortality rates in the six Pennsylvania counties with the most Marcellus Shale development have declined or remained stable since shale production began in the region, according to a new Energy In Depth-commissioned report. The findings directly refute accusations from anti-energy groups that the fracking boom is a threat to public health.

Key findings include:

  • There was no identifiable impact on death rates in the six counties attributable to the introduction of unconventional oil and gas development. In fact, the top Marcellus counties experienced declines in mortality rates in most of the indices.”
  • “The proportion of elderly-to-total population increased significantly in the top Marcellus counties compared to the state. Based on this fact, death rates in these six counties would be expected to increase, but this expected increase did not occur.
  • “Unconventional gas development was not associated with an increase in infant mortality in the top Marcellus counties, as the mortality rate significantly declined (improved), even surpassing the improvement of the state.”
  • “Unconventional gas development was not associated with an increase in deaths related to chronic lower respiratory disease (including asthma) in the top Marcellus counties, as the overall chronic lower respiratory disease mortality rate declined (improved) or was variable for the six-county area. The only exception was Greene County where the increased mortality rate was consistent with the increase in the elderly population.”
  • “During the period that unconventional gas development was introduced to these counties, the trends reflected a positive economic change in the area. Thereforeany increases in the death rates in the top Marcellus counties cannot be associated with negative changes to the economic viability of the population.”
  • “Unconventional gas development was not associated with an increase in deaths related to cancer, heart disease, cerebrovascular disease, influenza or pneumonia, nephritis or nephrotic syndrome, or septicemia in the top Marcellus counties, as the mortality rates significantly declined (improved).”

Read more.

Jacobs notes the report analyzed Pennsylvania Department of Health data for the state as a whole and the counties of Bradford, Greene, Lycoming, Susquehanna, Tioga, and Washington from 2000 to 2014. The report explains the significance of using the state’s data, noting,

“Pennsylvania has a comprehensive database and a decades-long history of reporting this data, providing the reviewer a consistent, reliable and sanctioned independent database to draw from for this study. Most importantly, the source of the data is the Pennsylvania State Health Department, as part of the National Center for Disease Control reporting system, and therefore is not data generated by the researcher. This protects the conclusion from bias and ensures that the study can be replicated when peer-reviewed.”

As with every issue, science trumps any initial emotional response. The environmentalists rallying cry that fracking will kill you are wrong headed and not scientifically proven. Fracking has been going on in the U.S. since 1940s with a surge beginning in 1990.

Americans rely on cheap reliable power. Fracking and fossil fuels meet both of these criteria and will allow American energy dominance.

RELATED ARTICLES: 

5 Ways Energy Dominance Can Bolster Trump’s National Security Strategy

The Facts of Fracking – New York Times

RELATED VIDEO: Climate Change: What do scientists say?

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is by Cristobal Schmal.

A Great Week for President Trump, Utter Failure for the United Nations

The past week saw an unparalleled accomplishment by President Donald Trump and his team in the domestic arena in the passage of a tax plan that not only lowered corporate rates by 14 points, but repealed the individual mandate, and state and local tax deductions.

By contrast, the United Nations displayed its consistently hateful and irrational bias towards Israel, along with its ill-directed ire towards the United States, by first considering a resolution calling for the United States to withdraw its recognition of Jerusalem as the rightful capital of Israel (a resolution with absolutely no chance of adoption due to America’s veto power at the General Assembly) and with the passage of a resolution condemning the United States for its position on the matter. In the end, 128 countries voted in favor of this overtly hostile second resolution with 35 nations abstaining and 8 nations joining the United States in opposing it.

But in contradistinction to other occasions, the United States forewarned the member nations that it considered these two resolutions direct insults to its sovereignty and would be holding complicit members accountable. As fearless Ambassador Nikki Haley said, “We’re taking names.”

What does this mean to the United Nations?

The United States provides about 22% of the international organizations’ general budget funds with the second highest contributor being Japan at a distant 9.68%. Additionally, the United States provides the organization a permanent home in New York replete with diplomatic immunity for its members to avoid criminal punishment, plus the majority of its military and policing capabilities. In light of the impatience of the American people at the continued antics emanating from the United Nations, it is likely that these numbers will precipitously drop as early as 2018.

Unquestionably, the United States must work to undo the damage done by the weak standing of the Obama administration. Few things can more effectively accomplish this goal than withdrawing 22% of one’s revenues, and it is high time that we did just that.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in The Revolutionary Act.

How Eighty-Eight French Women Began a Journey that Changed the Course of History in America

French diplomat, political scientist, and historian Count Alexis de Tocqueville, in his seminal work Democracy in America written in 1835, wrote:

“[N]ow that I am drawing to the close of this work, in which I have spoken of so many important things done by the Americans, to what the singular prosperity and growing strength of that people ought mainly to be attributed, I should reply: To the superiority of their women.”

A recently published book has shed new light on how de Tocqueville’s home country added immensely to the “superiority” of the American women.

Click on the image to purchase The Brides of La Baleine.

That book is titled The Brides of La Baleine written by Randall Ladnier. Mr. Ladnier is a renowned genealogist of French Colonial Families who lives in Sarasota, Florida. Born in Gulfport, Mississippi Mr. Ladnier, while researching the history and genealogy of the Gulf Coast in the libraries of Louisiana, Mississippi and the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris discovered the amazing story of one of his ancestors. His ancestor was one of eighty-eight French women who would become the matriarchs of families across the great states of Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama and Illinois.

In his painstakingly researched book Mr. Ladnier lays out an amazing timeline of how these eighty-eight women, ages 12 to 30  years-old, began a long journey from the Hospital General at La Salpetrière in Paris via ox cart to the French coast port of Paimboeuf to board a small ship to make the arduous trip to “Mississippi” as prospective brides for the soldiers and French pioneers of the French colony of Louisiana. Not all made it alive but those who did made history.

These brave women have become forever known as the Brides of La Baleine.

According to Mr. Ladnier,

The Baleine’s genetic contribution to America approaches that of the the MAYFLOWER, which had arrived 100 years earlier. All of the Baleine Brides had volunteered. None of them had been deported.

Thus, Biloxi became the equivalent of “Plymouth Rock” for the French colony of Louisiana. On September 6th, 1620, twenty-nine Pilgrim women had set sail from England on the Mayflower, in order to escape religious persecution. Fifteen of those women died within six months of their arrival in America.

Governor Bienville apparently received at least 72 young women of child-bearing age, desperate to escape social and moral persecution in France. These French women eventually formed the genetic foundation on which Gulf Coast societies have been built.

Perhaps the most interesting part of this book is how the Hospital General at La Salpetrière in Paris was created by Louis XIV. In 1684, he ordered that “debauched women” would be arrested and incarcerated at La Salpetriere General Hospital in Paris. He issued an edict that any female prostitute caught with his soldiers, within a five mile radius of Versailles, would have her nose and her ears cut off. However not all of the women and young girls in La Salpetriere were prostitutes.

Many of these women and young girls were never prostitutes. Some parents or other relatives could file a claim with the court regarding the misbehavior of a family member (rebellion, sexual activity, stealing, rejection of religion, taking God’s name in vain, etc.) and the lieutenant general de police would ordinarily issue a lettre de cachet which was similar to today’s arrest warrant. The targeted person (usually a daughter) would be arrested and incarcerated. The family members could choose to leave her at La Salpetriere and pay a fee for her board, or they could request that their relative be deported to Louisiana, from whence there would be no return to France. There was not any legal mechanism for appeal against a lettre de cachet.

These particular eighty-eight women were screened prior to volunteering to becoming migrant brides. Records show that Cardinal Louis-Antoine de Noailles, Archbishop of Paris and spiritual advisor to La Salpetriere, approved the list of eighty-eight women and girls.

I highly recommend this book for those who want to understand how women helped shape not only the Gulf Coast states but America in general.

To learn more about The Brides of La Baleine please click here.

Mr. Ladnier has a vision to:

  • Create a Mississippi non-profit corporation for the purpose of raising money to build or rent a permanent structure in Ocean Springs or Biloxi, which will house a museum  and tourist attraction that will open by January of 2021.
  • Elect a board of directors from the pool of direct descendants of the Baleine Brides.
  • Publish and sell copies of a book containing the genealogies of those brides who founded large families in Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, and Illinois.
  • Compile and maintain access to the family genealogies on a central computer database in the museum.
  • Create a short film, which tells the story of the Baleine Brides, to be shown once every hour in the auditorium of the museum.
  • Display tableaux in the museum which will illustrate significant places and events in the story, including early maps of Mississippi.
  • Display a one-fifth scale model of the flute La Baleine with a cross-sectional view of the ship.
  • Display historical artifacts from the period when Biloxi was the capitol of Louisiana.
  • Staff a souvenir and gift shop to sell items bearing the copyrighted La Baleine logo.
  • Provide a logo pin and certificate of membership to eligible descendants for a fee.
  • Organize an annual convention for certified descendants to be held in Biloxi or Ocean Springs, Mississippi.

Worthy goals indeed. American history must be preserved. It is important to remember from where we came. As de Tocqueville noted, “Liberty cannot be established without morality, nor morality without faith.”

These Baleine Brides were truly women of faith and morality.

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is a depiction of prospective brides departing France in the 1883 painting entitled “L’embarquement de Manon Lescaut” [The boarding of Manon Lescaut] by Charles Edouard Delort.

The Paradoxical Structure of the Kingdom

In 1970, the noted Catholic philosopher Frederick Wilhelmsen published a little book entitled The Paradoxical Structure of Existence. Wilhelmsen was a great teacher and also a very clear writer who could make Thomistic metaphysics intelligible, even for us non-professionals. Following St. Thomas, Wilhelmsen glories in the transcendence of the principle of existence in both created an uncreated being, and thus he escapes the limited philosophical perspectives that have paralyzed our thinking for centuries now.

My subject here, however, is not the paradoxical structure of existence, but rather the paradoxical structure of the Kingdom of God – established by God’s Word made Flesh. I am not a metaphysician and I struggle with deeper matters of theology. But it seems clear to me that this structure of the Kingdom follows quite Theo-logically from the principle of St. Thomas that grace always builds upon nature.

So, if the created order of being, the natural order, has a paradoxical structure inherent in its very being, then the Kingdom of God created by grace would be expected to have a similar paradoxical structure. And there is all kinds of evidence of this fact in the Gospels and the New Testament as a whole. But it all begins with the Incarnation itself, the first manifestation of which we are about to celebrate on Christmas.

What Christians believe about the Incarnation involves, perhaps, the greatest paradox of all. The infinite Son of God, the creative Word, has quite literally become a finite creature – not by a synthesis of opposites (divinity/humanity, creator/creature, as understood by Hegelian dialectics). That would have suppressed both the humanity and the divinity: and resulted in something else altogether. Instead, there is a transcendent synthesis, in which divinity and humanity are both perfectly preserved in the transcendence of the Divine Person who is made incarnate.

Paradox is the only literary vehicle we have even to begin to understand this great mystery. The infinite becomes finite without ceasing to be infinite. Because the divine person is pure existence, Ipsum Esse Subsistens, which transcends being itself, He does not become a human person but remains what He is, the perfect image of God the Father, and Creator.

Theologically, everything flows from this paradox of paradoxes. And thus many aspects of the Kingdom that He came to establish can only be described in paradoxical terms. For instance, in the Kingdom of God, you only find yourself if you lose yourself. We cannot understand who we really are nor become what we are meant to become unless we “lose” whatever there is in our “self” that contradicts the purpose for which God has created us. The “ego” that we have corrupted by our sins and self-aggrandizement, has to be “lost,” i.e., purified and transformed into the image of the perfect Image of God whom we call our Savior.

That’s just one wonderful example of this paradoxical structure, and there are many others. For instance, when Jesus says to St. Paul  (2 Corinthians 12:9), “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Surely, this paradoxical principle of the Christian life is traceable back to the Incarnation itself: God’s divine power was made perfect here in this world in the weakness of the human nature assumed by the Son. The full manifestation of this paradoxical truth takes place on Calvary, when the weakness of Jesus reaches its zenith, and the power of God brings about the redemption of the human race. But it was first manifested in that stable at Bethlehem where an infinite divine person was born into this world in all the weakness and vulnerability of an infant. Isn’t this what fills us with wonder and joy every Christmas, this ultimate paradox of paradoxes?

Certainly St. Paul learned a great lesson from this supreme paradox, necessary to help him grow stronger spiritually “in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake.” He learned to imitate Christ in His weakness, and thus he concludes with great confidence and even joy, “For when I am weak, then am I strong.”

A last example: this one from Luke 22. There Jesus teaches his disciples “let the greatest among you be as the youngest, and the leader as the servant.” This paradox echoes a similar text, earlier in the Gospels, “For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.” Jesus is speaking here specifically to those whom he is calling to lead the Church, his Apostles. They above all have to learn the lesson of this paradox.

In the Kingdom of God, where the order of grace fully operates, true greatness is the result of humility and service of the other, just as Christ humbled himself in obedience unto death and was Himself the Servant of the servants of God. How interesting, then, that these very words have been used, since the time of Gregory the Great, to describe the office of the pope.

How wonderful and joyful it is to meditate on the multiple paradoxes found in the Gospels. Let me repeat: all of them are grounded in that ultimate paradox of the Incarnation and lead us constantly back to that mystery.

And all of them help us to understand how this paradoxical Gospel teaching and the order of grace not only changed the perception of the dignity of the human person, but they enabled the human person to transcend the very limitations of his sinful nature in order to become a true child of God, in and through that order of grace.

Even the greatest pagan philosophers never really understood the true dignity of the individual human person. Only with God’s self-revelation in Jesus Christ, born of a virgin, was the transcendence and ultimate destiny of the human person made manifest.

Fr. Mark A. Pilon

Fr. Mark A. Pilon

Fr. Mark A. Pilon, a priest of the Diocese of Arlington, VA, received a Doctorate in Sacred Theology from Santa Croce University in Rome. He is a former Chair of Systematic Theology at Mount St. Mary’s Seminary, and a retired and visiting professor at the Notre Dame Graduate School of Christendom College. He writes regularly at littlemoretracts.wordpress.com.

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is titled Light of the Incarnation by Carl Gutherz, 1888 [Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, Memphis, TN] © 2017 The Catholic Thing. All rights reserved. For reprint rights, write to: info@frinstitute.orgThe Catholic Thing is a forum for intelligent Catholic commentary. Opinions expressed by writers are solely their own.

A Christmas Reflection

At Midnight Mass all over the world, the words of the prophet Isaiah are proclaimed: “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.” (Is. 9:1) Ever since the summer solstice, we have been losing a little bit of light each day. The sun rises later in the morning and sets earlier in the evening. Some of us walk out the door in the morning into darkness and then return home in darkness. Our days are framed by darkness; there is always more of it in winter.

Our lives are also darkened, due to sin. With every lie, slander, false accusation, our lives are darkened a bit more. If we rationalize enough, we will no longer distinguish the light of grace from the darkness of our sins. Why is it that a great many of the sins we commit are sins of the tongue?

Speech is God’s way of drawing us into the folds of His love. In former times, the Letter to the Hebrews says, God spoke to us in partial and fragmentary ways. Now, in the Incarnation, the Lord has spoken to us through His Son. (cf. Heb. 1:1)

The Word became flesh and we saw His glory, the glory of the Father’s only Son, full of grace and truth. (Jn. 1:14) This is the way Saint John describes the birth of Christ. There is no stable, no manger, and no shepherds in the field. How do we know, then, if we are in the presence of something glorious? Well, if you have ever been to Rome, you know the glorious by the fountains, the obelisks, etc. It’s glorious that antiquity has been preserved and we can revel in it thousands of years later.

The glory of the Incarnation is revealed to us in the One Who speaks truthfully. Jesus speaks truthfully in His birth. But infants do not emerge from their mothers’ wombs speaking; they come out crying.

Near the end of His earthly ministry, Jesus stands accused before Pontius Pilate. He is accused of being a king. In His own defense, Jesus says, “You say I am a king. For this I was born and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth.” (Jn. 18:37)

After hearing Jesus’ testimony, Pilate is satisfied. He orders that the inscription JESUS OF NAZARETH KING OF THE JEWS be placed on top of the Cross. (cf. Jn. 19:19) What we have is a King Who suffers and dies for the truth. More to the point, what we have is the embodiment of Truth suffering and dying. To the question then what good is truth if it results in suffering and death, we have this wonderful reply from Saint John Paul II in Veritatis Splendor:

[Christ’s] crucified flesh fully reveals the unbreakable bond between freedom and truth, just as his Resurrection from the dead is the supreme exaltation of the fruitfulness and saving power of a freedom lived out in truth. (87)

Among the first things babies are taught is how to speak. Initially, the words are badly formed, mispronounced, even unintelligible. After some practice, the words come more easily. Some of us actually become glib and clever phrasemakers – a kind of verbal gymnastics. We bend and shape our bodies in various ways; we do the same with our words. We stretch, pull, and manipulate them so that, often, their common meanings are no longer recognizable.

Jesus was born and came into the world to teach us how to speak truth. Not how to fast-talk our way out of trouble, not how to “spin” things. He doesn’t teach us to dodge and equivocate.

Jesus teaches us that we should let our Yes mean Yes, and No mean No. (cf. Mt. 5:37) This does not rule out speaking prudently, tactfully, or diplomatically. It does mean, however, that we call things by their right names.

The power to name was given to Adam before the Fall. (cf. Gn. 2:19) After the Fall, Jesus, the New Adam, restores our capacity to name things properly. Those who revel in the Messiah’s birth cannot fail a second time by accepting the myth that language never reveals things as they are.

Usually, adults teach babies how to talk. On Christmas, we permit a Baby to teach adults how to talk. He is the Babe of Bethlehem and upon his shoulder dominion rests. (cf. Is. 9:5)

In Greek mythology, Atlas is a god who supports the sky on his shoulders. Superhuman strength is needed to bear such a weight.

There is weighty responsibility when we open our mouths to speak. We decide if our words are going to reflect truth. Or if our words are going to mirror fashionable denials of what the natural law and revelation tell us are good for individuals and society.

Christmas can never be separated from a virgin who assented to God’s plan and brought forth for us the Christ Whose birth, life, death and Resurrection open up for us the prospect of eternal life. Christmas holds words and their meanings together so that we don’t divorce language from reality.

After proclaiming that He is the Bread come down from heaven, which causes some of the disciples to depart, Jesus asks the Twelve, “Do you also want to leave? (Jn 6: 67) Simon Peter speaks truth, “Master, to who shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” (Jn 6: 68)

Jesus possesses the words of eternal life because He is the Word, the Word made flesh. (cf. Jn 1:14) The Holy Eucharist changes darkness into light for each of us; falsehood gives way to truth and our words go silent before the only Word that matters: The Word through Whom the universe was made, the Savior sent to redeem us.

Let us listen attentively to the Lord’s word and be ever more mindful of its power to make us children of God (cf. Jn 1:12) unto eternity.

Fr. Mark A. Pilon

Fr. Mark A. Pilon

Fr. Mark A. Pilon, a priest of the Diocese of Arlington, VA, received a Doctorate in Sacred Theology from Santa Croce University in Rome. He is a former Chair of Systematic Theology at Mount St. Mary’s Seminary, and a retired and visiting professor at the Notre Dame Graduate School of Christendom College. He writes regularly at littlemoretracts.wordpress.com.

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is titled the Nativity by Antonio da Correggio, c. 1530 [Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Dresden] © 2017 The Catholic Thing. All rights reserved. For reprint rights, write to: info@frinstitute.orgThe Catholic Thing is a forum for intelligent Catholic commentary. Opinions expressed by writers are solely their own.

VIDEO: A Muslim convert explains how Jews are really Muslims?

This video is both funny and sad as a rather smart Muslim backs himself into an absurd condudrum from which he has no way out.

In over thirty years of dealing with Muslims it never ceases to amaze me how even the nicest of intelligent Muslims can lose their logical bearing when it comes to facts about Jews and Christians.

If you are a student of Islam, as I am, you come to realize that Muslims have a systemic inferiority complex when dealing with the obvious superiority of the Judeo-Christian way of life over the Islamic Sunni or Shia way of life.

Just look at the deplorable conditions of the 56 Islamic countries when it comes to any competitive metrics of countries in the West. If it were not for “Arab oil” most Islamic countries would look Like Somalia or Syria, self-destroyed because of internal tribal or religious battles. War, death, destructionand Judeochristaphobia are part of Islamic DNA, rooted in Islamic doctrine, hardened in the heat of Islamic battles.

In this context platitudes like, “Religion of Peace,” and “One of the world’s Great Religions,” really are vacuous terms that tickle the ears of the softheaded but have no relevance to the informed. Islam is a cultural house of cards that is kept aloft by its sheer immensity and incomprehensible incitement of fear in the hearts of the non-believers.

When you spend time with the Muslim world, reading, writing, speaking, debating, protesting, discussing, counseling and fighting you quickly realize that violations of Aristotle’s canons of logic, by Muslims, are a requirement in order to confront and defeat anything Jewish.

This sad state of affairs is graphically illustrated in this short video interview that Tom Trento had with a Muslim regarding President Trump’s proclamation that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel and the US Embassy will be moved to Jerusalem.

Watch and listen carefully as a very nice Muslim backs himself into an absurd logical and historical position all to deny Jews the right to their capital, Jerusalem.

Deus Vitae!

On Feelings

James V. Schall, S.J.: The verb, “to feel” has, in many instances, replaced the verb “to think,” indicating a civilizational shift (and not a good one).

he administration of a major university recently sought information about the success of a new initiative. A survey was sent around. The respondents were asked in various ways to express their “feelings” about the program. About “feelings,” of course, no controversy or disagreement can follow. If “feeling” is the category under which we find out about things, we can have no argument. “Feelings” as such, however fleeting, are absolute. Either we have them or we do not.

Such is the meaning of the old Latin adage: De gustibus non est disputandum – about taste there is no dispute. In a world of “feelings,” no middle ground can be found. No common principle exists except: “Yes, I ‘feel’ this way” or “No, I do not ‘feel’ that way.” Suppose someone says to you: “Let me convince you that the beer that you claim ‘tastes’ so good is little better than warmed over lemon Jell-O.” Your answer remains: “I still like it best.”

The verb, “to feel” has, in many instances, replaced the verb “to think.” At first sight, these two verbs might seem to be synonyms. But on closer examination they differ tellingly from each other in a manner that indicates a civilizational shift. The society that “feels” is not the society that “thinks.” Both words have a specific meaning and they belong together in a certain order of priority. Our “feelings” are, or should be, at the service of our thought, but they are real enough in their own order.

“To feel” is the verb we use to indicate the status and nature of our passions or desires. It refers to those movements of our soul that are conjoined to our bodies. Hence, we say: “I feel sick.” “I am angry at Charlie.” Or “I laugh at Harriet.” But it is not sufficient to tell someone of his illness, anger, or humor. We need also to know whether such feelings are reasonable or not in the circumstance in which they arise. They may be. But if they are, it means not just how we “feel,” but whether our feelings are under the guidance of our reason. Further, it implies that our reason itself is measured by a standard that is not subjective. The standard was not created solely out of one’s own interests.

Aristotle is still master here. We have sensory knowledge. We “feel” pain. We touch something warm. We smell that foul odor. We taste the salt in the salad. We hear and understand the fib or joke that George told us. Without our sensory powers, we could not know these things that we deal with every day. Yet, the sense of smell does not itself know what smell is or how it differs from taste. Since we have minds that are not simply extensions of sensory powers, we know what smell, hearing, touch, and taste mean. We can hold all these differing aspects together at the same time.

Another thing we quickly learn about ourselves is that our sensory powers are subject to the rule of ourselves. We can learn why we have these powers. We see that we can be too angry or not angry enough. They each have proper purposes from which we can conclude to their proper place in our lives. By trial and error, by doing the right thing or wrong thing we become virtuous or vicious. We habituate ourselves in the way we use each of our sensory powers. Our character is manifested to others in the habitual way we respond to others. The central issue of our moral lives quickly comes to the surface in the way we act. Are we ruled by our passions or do we rule them?

If they rule us, does it make any difference? It turns out that our reason itself is oriented to an end, to a good that is not simply arbitrary. Our passions themselves, in other words, are faculties that look to reason’s guidance. Hence, their good or bad use arises from the end that our intelligence provides for us to choose and follow.

Thus, if our minds are skewered, so, in all likelihood, will be our passions. In this sense, the path from a civilization of reason to a civilization of “feelings” is quite intelligible. A civilization that places the primacy of “feelings” over a civilization of reason is one in which disorder has been habitualized and, indeed, customized and legalized.

One cannot be civilized and have no “feelings.” Civilization means freely implanting reason in control of our “feelings.” But it also means directing all of our passions to an end that places everything else in order. Passions, when given primacy, can become sophisticated “reasons” for replacing reason. But when this replacement happens, it is because we deliberately direct our minds away from their proper end.

James V. Schall, S.J.

James V. Schall, S.J.

James V. Schall, S.J., who served as a professor at Georgetown University for thirty-five years, is one of the most prolific Catholic writers in America. Among his recent books are The Mind That Is CatholicThe Modern AgePolitical Philosophy and Revelation: A Catholic ReadingReasonable PleasuresDocilitas: On Teaching and Being Taught, and Catholicism and Intelligence.

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is Snow Storm: Steam-Boat off a Harbour’s Mouth by J.M.W. Turner, 1842 [Tate, London] © 2017 The Catholic Thing. All rights reserved. For reprint rights, write to: info@frinstitute.orgThe Catholic Thing is a forum for intelligent Catholic commentary. Opinions expressed by writers are solely their own.

How Many Times Did You Beat Your Wife?

The essential element in the question, “How many times did you beat your wife?” is its presupposition that the husband beat his wife.

Perhaps the best way to understand the ongoing debate surrounding Net Neutrality is to consider Noam Chomsky’s incisive observations on presuppositions in his book The Common Good (1998).

“The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum – even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there’s free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate.” p43

Millennials have been indoctrinated with the presuppositions of the Leftist narrative for two decades. Climate change is a classic example. The climate change argument presupposes the validity of its foundational premise of global warming. When it became abundantly clear that the earth’s temperature always fluctuates and was in fact cooling the global warming enthusiasts disingenuously changed the name of their campaign from “global warming” to “climate change” without ever accepting the scientific facts of the earth’s cooling. Why? Because global warming/climate change was never about the weather – it was always about the redistribution of wealth from rich industrialized countries to poorer non-industrialized countries in the form of taxes, fees, fines, and non-compliance penalties.

Even testimony by Patrick Moore former co-founder of Greenpeace before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, was not enough to convince millennials that global warming was a hoax because they had accepted the presupposition of the argument and were ideologically convinced they were saving the planet.

Oppositional views on climate change have actually been litigated. The court case against Mark Steyn attempted to silence Steyn’s oppositional views on climate change.

Steyn argued that if courts can silence free and open debate on scientific inquiry then freedom of speech is functionally dead. The pressure to conform in climate science is very real and the viciousness and hostility toward people who disagree is overwhelming. Anyone in the science community who challenges the “settled” science of climate change is considered unhinged or a dissident to be silenced – not a respected scientist or a climatologist to be heard. Climate science is functionally political science because redistribution of wealth is a political matter unrelated to weather.

So it is with Net Neutrality, FCC regulation 15-24 rescinded by FCC panel vote on 12.14.17. Millennials are now arguing passionately and persuasively to restore FCC 15-24 because they accept the suppositions of the argument that Net Neutrality is actually neutral. In fact, Net Neutrality, like climate change, is a partisan political weapon in the Leftist Culture War on America. Instead of redistribution of wealth, Net Neutrality seeks legalized censorship of the Internet by left-wing liberal Internet Content Providers. The social pressure to conform to the political narrative of Net Neutrality is as powerful and vicious as the social pressure to conform to climate change. This is how it works.

Net Neutrality was disingenuously introduced by Obama as a preventative measure to legally “protect” consumers from the “possibility” of Internet Service Providers (ISP) like Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T charging for Internet usage based on website content. Obama’s diversionary tactic deceitfully focused public attention and debate on the possibility of fees related to content and away from the real Title II provisions that bind Internet Service Providers (ISP) to Net Neutrality but exempt Internet Content Providers like Google, Facebook, Twitter. It was a classic indirect approach – the eighth of eight classical maneuvers in warfare – a diversionary tactic that focuses attention away from the essential play.

The Tech-Left was instrumental in the formulation of “Net Neutrality” and helped write the new rules. Not surprisingly, the consequence was that the Leftist content providers who currently dominate the Internet were “free to restrain content by censoring out all conservative and libertarian views at will, without so much as an explanation to anyone why the objectionable views were banned.” Net Neutrality awards the Leftist content providers precisely what Obama claimed Net Neutrality was “protecting” the country from. FCC 15-24 gifted the power of complete legal censorship to the political Left!

Net Neutrality was rightfully rescinded because it was written to silence free and open debate on the Internet. Whoever controls the information controls the public because without free speech there is no freedom. The millennials who naively continue to argue that Net Neutrality must be restored should examine the presuppositions that continue to inform their opinions and examine the legalized censorship that was always the essential play in FCC 15-24.

Just as the redistribution of wealth is the underbelly of Climate Change and its essential play, legalized censorship of the Internet is the underbelly of Net Neutrality and its essential play. Both policies disingenuously presented as lively debates but actually just reinforcing the presuppositions of the system. “How many times did you beat your wife?”

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the Goudsmit Pundicity.

VIDEO: Democrats’ Favored DACA Amnesty Bill Would Cost $26 Billion

The legislative replacement for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program favored by most Democrats would add billions to the budget deficit, according to an estimate from Congress’ nonpartisan accounting shop.

The Congressional Budget Office released Friday its score of the Dream Act of 2017, a DACA amnesty bill that would provide legal permanent residence and, eventually, a path to citizenship for well over 1 million younger illegal immigrants. The CBO found that the Dream Act would increase the federal budget deficit by $26 billion over a decade, mostly by conferring eligibility for federal benefits to the amnestied immigrants.

dcnf-logo

Introduced earlier this year by Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., the bill has become the DACA replacement of choice for congressional Democrats. Both Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi have said they are committed to passing a “clean” Dream Act to legalize DACA recipients and other similarly situated illegal immigrants.

The Dream Act would direct the Department of Homeland Security to give lawful conditional status to illegal immigrants who were under 18 years old when they initially entered the U.S. and have lived here for at least four years prior to the bill’s enactment. Because of the Dream Act’s expansive eligibility criteria, the number of illegal immigrants who would benefit from the Dream Act is far higher than the DACA population of about 790,000.

The CBO estimates that about 2 million illegal immigrants would be granted conditional lawful permanent resident status under the Dream Act. “Roughly 1 million of the 1.6 million people receiving unconditional LPR status would become naturalized U.S. citizens during the 2018-2027 period,” the CBO cost estimate states.

Amnesty for that population would boost the deficit mainly through increased direct spending on Medicaid, health insurance subsidies, and food stamp benefits. On the revenue side, any tax gains from bringing illegal immigrants “on the books” would be largely offset because “increased reporting of employment income would result in increases in tax deductions by businesses,” according to the CBO’s estimate.

“As a result, corporations would report lower taxable profits and pay less in income taxes,” the CBO report added.

Democrats’ push for a “clean” Dream Act is unlikely to result in a DACA replacement before the end of the year, as immigration advocates and their allies on Capitol Hill have demanded.

Though Republicans have expressed support for crafting a legislative fix, both the White House and immigration hawks in Congress have insisted that any DACA replacement bill include border security enhancements and deeper reforms such as limits on chain migration and ending the Diversity Visa Lottery.

Republican leadership has also rejected the idea of including Dream Act provisions in the 2018 spending bill, which is due Friday.

ARTICLE BY:

Will Racke

Will Racke is a reporter for The Daily Caller News Foundation. Twitter: @hwillracke.

DITORS NOTE: Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities for this original content, email licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

American Gyno-Stalinism on the ruins of Shagadelic Utopia

The sexual revolution is now officially devouring its own children.

Something’s rotten in the fairy-tale kingdom of progress. It is crumbling like the magical land of Fantastica after people stopped believing in it. Progs are melting like toons under the green shower of Judge Doom. Is our never-ending narrative finished? Comrade Red Square investigates.

Comrades!

170 years ago, Karl Marx began his Communist Manifesto by writing, “A specter is haunting Europe – the specter of communism. All the powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this specter.”

Marxism has since been upgraded with many new features and functions. The revolutionary class is no longer the workers, but the white-color coalition of identity pressure groups, spearheaded by transsexuals and financed by international currency manipulators. Imperialism and colonialism were replaced with globalism and mass migration. The violent revolution was replaced with the march through the institutions, class struggle with culture wars, and historical materialism with phallophobia.

Even the specter of communism has been replaced. As karmic retribution for Karl Marx’s known penchant to sexually harass his female subordinates, the world is now being haunted by the specter of Pussy™, with all the progressive powers entering into a holy alliance to enable this haunting and protect it from exorcism, even as it’s fixing to swallow the entire progressive movement, chew it up, and spit out the bones.

The haunting began on Friday, Oct. 7, 2016, when we released an 11-year-old Access Hollywood tape, in which the merry bachelor Trump was recorded bragging about his status as a celebrity, which was why beautiful women in the industry allowed him to kiss them and “grab them by the pussy.” Designed to destroy Trump, this October surprise barely made a dent. We followed it up with a massive media campaign, in which the P-word was memefied in thousands of images, but the nation’s psyche remained unscathed. We organized million-strong marches of pussycomrades in pussyhats, but the country treated them as clowns.

Nothing in our playbook was working; we should’ve just stopped. But when a prog hits a wall, the answer is always to push harder. We became possessed by the P-specter. It made us fixated on P-issues, repeating the P-word like a magic spell and howling it at the moon as we channeled our rage toward white cisgendered hetero-males who we imagined were all guilty of P-grabbing. In the process we became impossible zero-tolerance prudes. If Marx were still around, we’d have called him a creep, pressured him to resign, and mocked his theories on late night shows. Our sexual revolution became a Freudian slip-and-fall mess. We began to purge everyone who didn’t live up to the new puritanical standard, even if it meant losing valuable comrades.

It wasn’t always like that.

We used to thrive on vulgarity, promiscuity, and wholesale permissiveness – it was part of our culture wars. The famous Free Speech Movement in Berkeley was all about the free use of four-letter words; it was later celebrated as an heroic legend. We made sure that lewd language and content would enter Hollywood movies and cable TV shows, rap music, and books. The revolutionary red transmutated into 50 shades of gray.

We injected lewdness in our youth magazines and our public schools, with Obama’s “safe schools czar” setting up programs that taught young children oral and anal sex. It was followed by trans and gender fluidity indoctrination of kindergarteners. Depravity and profanity entered the White House under the Clintons, with security detail recalling Hillary cursing at them like a sailor; the Obama-Biden team wasn’t much of an improvement.

Our heroes were pornographers and celebrities who kept flouting the rules of normalcy with public nudity, wardrobe malfunctions, pussy-flashing™, twerking and dry-humping on stage. Our favorite activists were Code Pink who taunted conservative squares by dressing in vagina costumes and parading as gigantic gaping sexual organs, with two feet and a head on top. We celebrated our sexcapades at events like the 2008 Matt Lauer’s Roast with hours of “dick and pussy” jokes from some of the biggest stars of TV and film.

Our shagadelic utopia was almost complete, filled with drugs, smut, and – yeah baby – lots of pussy. We all liked pussy. We were building a bawdy new world where anyone, regardless of age, race, or income could eat as much pussy as he or she liked. And now we are finding out that we’ve built a complete opposite of that. In the new progressive America, pussy eats you. Call it the law of unintended consequences.

The Trump tape has since been eclipsed by the much more vivid details about our lecherous comrades raping, groping, harassing, and intimidating women. We should’ve quit after Harvey Weinstein. But like an electrocuted hand that can’t let go of a hot wire, we can’t let go of the P-issue, and it is killing us.

Exposing the obvious is, perhaps, Trump’s most dangerous talent. Once he lays it bare, other people begin to see it as obvious, too, even though previously they were afraid to admit it. In this sense Trump creates truth out of things we fought so hard to bury deep down in ourselves and others. This makes him the Anti-Prog. But it’s hard to paint him as Anti-Pussy, no matter how hard we try.

Deep down, we all know that after Bill Clinton, Madonna, and Miley Cyrus, after years of desensitizing this nation to smut and violence with Comedy Central and Harvey Weinstein’s productions, we can’t seriously expect anyone to be shocked by the P-word. Then why are we still hyping it? Because it’s our nature, our ideology, and our creed. Because the issue is never the issue; the issue is always the revolution.

Unfortunately for us, revolutions tend to devour their own children. Our sexual revolution is no exception.

Time Magazine dedicated its 2017 “Person of the Year” issue to women collectively named “The Silence Breakers” who exposed and denounced a powerful group of male chauvinist pigs. Nobody paid attention to the fact that today’s pigs were yesterday’s progressive idols who used to act within the accepted norms of our libidinous progdom. But the P-specter has changed the rules; the new norms are remorseless and retroactive. The rollicking idols of the Age of Aquarius are now being toppled, broken to smithereens, spit upon, and replaced by the grim, vengeful idols of the Age of Pussy.

To remind us who the real enemy is, the media propagated a new rumor that Trump has had the gall to deny he used the P-word. Another news cycle ensued, with Billy Bush of the P-tape fame vowing in The New York Times op-ed page, Yes, Donald Trump, You Said That. CNN unearthed an aging reporter who remembered how way back in the year 2000 he also heard Trump say the P-word during a golf weekend at Mar-a-Lago. The Daily Beast turned this recollection into an “Exclusive” and “Very Special” investigation titled, Trump Bragged: ‘Nothing in the World Like First-Rate P**sy’.

We can feign shock, reach for our nonexistent smelling salts, and commiserate with all the second- and third-rate pussies who must feel triggered, bitter, and empty. But deep down we can’t argue with the fact that a first-rate pussy is still better than a third-rate pussy. Marxism can’t change that. No ideology can. Trump simply stated the obvious.

Prog-power has always depended on people’s obedience to stay within a pre-approved range of ideas. Our success is measured by the amount of sheer terror people experience at the thought of mistakenly crossing an invisible line. Well-trained progs always huddle together within safe zones and only make noises that are guaranteed to earn them a treat – a behavior known as “virtue signaling.”

On that front we’ve been extremely successful – that is until Trump threw the P-bomb into our safe zone. More specifically, we constructed the bomb ourselves and threw it at him; but instead of ducking and running like all other Republicans, he caught it in midair and threw it back at us.

Since then we’ve been dealing with damage control, mending the shattered fence, and recompiling the lists of things that are forbidden to see as true or obvious. Worse yet, many had lost their fears, which is our ultimate tool of persuasion. We needed to restore obedience by putting fear back into people’s hearts. Someone on the committee decided that phallophobia – the morbid and irrational fear of male genitalia and, more broadly, an excessive aversion to masculinity – would be a good new fear to terrorize the nation into compliance. It was a good idea overall, but we may have overdone it.

As it were, we are now being decimated by what was supposed to be our elite troops – the ruthless army of femprogs who had been raised as soldiers for the War on Women and are now waging it against the sexteblishment without mercy. The problem is that it’s our sexteblishment. The poor devils bought our narrative that the establishment was conservative, when it’s been almost entirely progressive since at least the Vietnam War. And we can’t tell them to stop because that would expose our game.

In the meantime the progressive movement continues to self-destruct in a frenzy of phallophobic purges and show trials that have uncanny parallels with Stalinism. Hence I’m calling it Gyno-Stalinism.

A little history. By 1936 Stalin had already exterminated the last vestiges of capitalism and declared the creation of a socialist system (prolonged applause). But the Soviet terror machine still needed continuous fodder to keep the system running, so Stalin conveniently turned it against the competition in his own party. Thus began the great purges and show trials that targeted the most committed communists, original revolutionaries, and Red Army commanders.

In the blink of an eye, yesterday’s leaders and revered heroes transformed into despised and cursed enemies of the people. Daily headlines were filled with the names of beloved celebrities who were now supposed to be universally hated, crossed out of history books and forgotten. All it took was someone’s anonymous smear.

New national heroes were the ones who exposed and prosecuted old national heroes, but they, too, were eventually exposed and prosecuted by even newer heroes of the unstoppable Stalinist meat grinder. Having lost everything and facing the gulag, the victims groveled and confessed to anything their tormentors demanded; their heart-wrenching confessions were published on the front pages of leading newspapers.

By then the people were prepared to believe anything at all. Anyone could be betrayed and no one felt safe. The country was consumed by fear, paranoia, snitching, distrust, and the readiness to hate and denounce on command; it didn’t matter whom or what.

Principles and morality vanished, replaced by primordial self-preservation.

Fast forward to a progressive America of Twitter hashtags, righteous denouncements, desperate groveling, and public condemnation. One after another, our glorious thought-leaders and heroes, once admired as the best and the brightest, are confessing to terrible sexcrimes against their pussycomrades. Their heart-wrenching confessions are published on the front pages of leading newspapers.

The nation’s headlines are filled with the names of beloved celebrities and politicians who from now on must be publicly hated, stricken from records, and condemned to oblivion.

This may feel like Stalinism Lite because nobody is being executed or sent to the gulag. And yet, just like under Stalin, anyone naive enough to stand up for a friend or appeal to reason automatically becomes a traitor, ripe for media smears and social media bullying by former comrades.

The lifelong prog Garrison Keillor wrote a column defending his comrade Al Franken and was himself instantly denounced as a sexcriminal. After almost 40 years of hosting NPR’s most successful show, “A Prairie Home Companion,” which he also created, Keillor lost his reputation, his job on the radio, and his Washington Post column.

Megyn Kelly made half-a-noise in defense of her friend Matt Lauer, but quickly shut up when she overheard growling in the control room. Comrade Megyn has always known what’s best for her career.

Lena Dunham unwisely Tweeted a statement defending her friend and writer for her HBO series who had been accused of sexcrimes. She suffered a vicious backlash. It didn’t matter that she herself was a card-carrying lecherous femprog in good standing. Dunham was forced to grovel, confess to thoughtcrimes, and submit to a mandatory period of conspicuous self-criticism and virtue signaling.

Virtue signaling, too, has gone around the bend to catch up with the Party line’s latest zigzag. As Stalin once said, we are not individuals but cogs in the great machine. Friendship and principles have become the non-virtues. The virtues of a human cog are unthinking loyalty to the cause du jour and willingness to sacrifice one’s individuality, believe anything one hears from other cogs, and attack enemies on command without questioning why. When we look at the black-clad Antifa, we don’t see thinking individuals; we see faceless, genderless, dispensable cogs in the progressive attack machine, which is what all good kids should aspire to be when they grow up. This is the new virtue signaling.

At least Stalin owned the country he was terrorizing; we don’t – and it makes all the difference. Our plan was to rule after Hillary’s win. We fully expected the phallophobic forces we had unleashed in advance of her triumph to abate after the election. We were so confident, there was no plan B. But Trump happened and now all bets are off; this progressive Chernobyl won’t stop until it has run out of fuel rods.

Let’s face it – we outsmarted ourselves by pretending that the media and entertainment were mainstream and nonpartisan. The gullible and the uninitiated in our midst fell for it, and now they are purging our well-placed operatives while honestly believing they are sticking it to the man.

Some call it poetic justice; I call it an autoimmune disorder. In medical terms this disorder occurs when the body’s immune system goes bonkers and attacks healthy body tissue by mistake. Similarly, our femprogs who have been trained to seek and destroy misogyny can’t tell the difference between the real sexenemy and their own progressive party organs. They wear pink pussyhats on their heads but they’ll crush anyone who utters the actual P-word; the resulting cognitive dissonance is driving them mad.

My advice to all male comrades is to hunker down and prepare for more friendly fire and collateral damage. As Stalin would say, Iyes rubyat, shchepki letyat – “chop wood and splinters will fly.” This Russian proverb is often rendered in English as “you can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs.” But that, too, is a translation from French, going back to that country’s own revolutionary Reign of Terror.

Stalinist purges continued, on and off, for nearly two decades. The paralyzing fear and the complicity of the ruling party had been so deep that it took three years after the death of Stalin to acknowledge the abuses and begin to rehabilitate the victims. How long will it take for the American Gyno-Stalinism to die out and what will the country look like when it’s over?

In one alternative timeline phallophobia will become the new normal; all sex will be legally seen as rape and all flirting will be seen as harassment; the only failsafe protection against human-on-human sex scandals will be robot partners, or better yet, robot politicians.

Yet in a different timeline the progressive movement will self-destruct and the surviving population will resume the old conservative ways to the mutual satisfaction of both sexes.

As for Donald Trump, he’ll remain in office and will continue to disentangle the system from our socialist improvements, proving that America works better without them. So we may as well give up politics and enjoy whatever is left of our sad lives before we get devoured by the giant man-eating pussy of our own creation.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally in FrontPage Magazine.