The world is an incredibly shallow place

It's Sundance Film Festival time.

An excerpt from a documentary film that is making a splash there.

There is a certain inevitability about that I suppose.

St Thomas and First Cause

Yesterday (January 28th) was the feast day in the Church of Saint Thomas Aquinas, the great philosopher, and a Doctor of the Church. He wrote much about the Nature of God, including his massive Summa Theologica. To that end, this reminded me of a part of a book by another Thomas (Thomas E Woods), called "How The Catholic Church Built Western Civilisation", where he takes the idea of Aquinas' First Cause and simplifies it for the reader. I will link to the page on Google books HERE, but also excerpt it below -

Saint Thomas's views are best understood if we begin with thought experiments from the secular world. Suppose you want to purchase a pound of turkey at the deli counter. Upon arrival there, you find that you must take a number before you can place your order. Just as you are about to take a number, however, you find that you are required to take a number before you can take a number. And just as you are about to take that number, you find that you must first take yet another number.Thus you must take a number to take a number to take a number to be able to place your order at the deli counter.

Suppose further that the series of numbers you are required to take is infinite. Every single time you are about to take a number, you discover that there exists a prior number you must first take before you can take the next number. You will never get to the deli counter under such conditions. From now until the end of time you will be forever taking numbers . Now if you were to come across someone in the grocery store walking around with half a pound of roast beef that he had purchased at the deli counter, you would instantly know that the series of numbers must in fact not go on forever.

Expressway change biased against homeowners

"They are going through houses and good properties for a few trees and Maori artefacts."

When the Motorway was built in Wellington, the Bolton St Cemetery was in the way of it, so graves were moved, no big deal. But Maori have a pantheist view which means they can decide their land is sacred in a way that a cemetery or homeowner's land isn't. It's superstition really, but pandering to superstition seems to be increasing.

Related link: Shock at expressway change ~ Dominion Post

Government contemplating open-ended plan to combat child abuse that could be changed without legislation

I've just been reading the Government's Green Paper on child abuse and had to stop and post on this doozy of a section that I just found on page 16. This is all about an action plan for helping vulnerable children (ie those likely to get abused). The idea is to legislate a "plan", but not the details of the plan. That way the details can be changed at any time without legislation. Here's the exact bit from the document.

The New Zealand Government could make changes to legislation that would:

• Set out the requirements for a Vulnerable Children’s Action Plan
• Set out the purpose and goals of having such a Plan
• Create cross-agency accountability for implementing the Plan by, for example, allocating responsibility
for it to a group of government chief executives
• Specifically recognise the needs of tangata whenua tamariki and include a process for a partnership
with iwi, hapu - and other Ma-ori organisations to address those needs
• Mandate regular reporting on progress
• Make specific policy changes (such as requirements for sharing information about vulnerable children)
• Make changes to practice (such as any necessary workforce regulation).

The Plan itself might not be included in legislation because its actions and targets will need to change as progress is made or new evidence becomes available. The legislation could contain a requirement that a Plan be developed, and that this Plan would be publicly available at all times and would contain actions, targets and timelines. Legislation could also clearly determine what must be in the Plan to ensure a longterm commitment.

Everyone will be interested in knowing the difference the Plan is making for vulnerable children. Legislation can set out processes for accountability that are transparent. It can require monitoring and reporting of progress against the Plan so that, as a nation, we know how that progress is being made.

It could do this through existing Government reporting processes. In addition, it could require a report to be tabled in Parliament so that it could be examined, for example, at a Select Committee. Or legislation could mandate monitoring of national progress on the Plan by a crown agency such as the Children’s Commissioner.

I'm flabbergasted. How could a government even contemplate such open-ended legislation? What type of people do they have working in the government right now? It would allow for anything to be inserted into the plan without legislation being necessary, thus bypassing Parliament completely.

Or am I wrong and I'm just freaking out over nothing?

Related link: Green Paper for Vulnerable Childre

Liam Neeson thinking about becoming Muslim

Neeson says of Istanbul:

“The call to prayer happens five times a day and for the first week it drives you crazy, and then it just gets into your spirit and it’s the most beautiful, beautiful thing.

“There are 4,000 mosques in the city. Some are just stunning and it really makes me think about becoming a Muslim.”

He needs to think about this some more. There's nothing stopping him from praying regularly as a Catholic, which I gather he doesn't really practice. Catholicism is a far more intellectual religion than Islam, so Islam tends to suit those that have trouble with concepts such as The Trinity (three persons in one God) or the Incarnation (the Second Person of the Trinity becoming man). If he stays Catholic, no one is going to make him pray like the almost political nature of Islamic group prayer where if you are not there joining in, people will notice.

Hilaire Belloc said of the Islamic religion that "it was a perversion of Christian doctrine". That on the whole, Mohammad, a pagan who lived on the fringe of the Catholic world, absorbed Catholicism and simplified his own version of it. However, by denying the Incarnation, he went much further than the Arians of his time (Christians that denied Jesus was divine), and by doing so wiped out the whole sacramental system of Christianity, making Islam very different. See an old post of mine, The great and enduring heresy of Mohommad.

Belloc also predicted back in his time (the first half of the previous century) that Islam would return. In a time of massive Christian lukewarmness, it is any wonder that those such as Neeson are attracted to the enforced religiosity of Islam?

Related link: Liam Neeson says he is thinking of becoming a Muslim ~ Holy Post

Waltz at the Brandenburg Gate

May 1945 and a lovely Red Army soldier directs traffic.

Government taking disturbing new direction under the guise of child abuse preventing

Average Kiwi families could be subject to greater state scrutiny if proposed rules around mandatory reporting of suspected child abuse are introduced.

A Families Commission report, released today, says agencies' inadequate systems are putting vulnerable children at risk.

It calls for better information-sharing between government departments and enhanced reporting by health professionals to safeguard at-risk children.

But it also suggests controversial new measures that could expose innocent mums and dads to greater government intervention if child abuse is suspected.

More than 22,000 children suffered emotional, physical and sexual abuse, or neglect, in the last financial year. Every year an average of 10 children die at the hands of their family or carers.

And how many of those abused children live with their biological married parents?

That is the elephant in the room - children are far more likely to be abused if their parent is a single mother and she has a live in boyfriend, but is the Government even directing their attention to irregular relationship setups? No. They just want greater scrutiny of parents who love and care for their children and live in such a way that abuse would be incredibly rare.

Related link : Plan to keep Kiwi kids safe

Companies for Conservatives to boycott

Starbucks

Microsoft

Nike

RealNetworks

Group Health Cooperative

Concur

Vulcan

I think this is disgusting that large international companies are seeking this sort of blatant political influence.  They deserve to be boycotted at every opportunity by the majority of people who are against the redefinition of marriage.

Related links:
Starbucks supports gay marriage legislation
Microsoft, Vulcan, other companies support gay marriage

Infected by feminism

Yesterday I was attacked by occasional commenter, Medusa, who told me to get off my arse and get a real job, the implication being that staying home to raise my children is not worth my time and they turn out just fine if a woman works full-time.  In fact she went further and implied her children would turn out better than mine because she worked while they were growing up!  Anyway, Medusa's comment was incredibly catty and I responded in kind, but, it reminded me of this post that I wanted to write. Namely that feminism has influenced very deeply how most people see women in society and what little value is given to motherhood.

Marxism early on recognised the bourgeoisie mother at home as a real obstacle in achieving a socialist society and so worked on making all women think that they would be far more valuable working than staying home raising their children and looking after their families. In other words, becoming a generator of income rather than a raiser and teacher of children.  This way, the woman would be separated from her children and less able to influence them in order to pass on conservative family values and religion.

Several decades on from when working outside the home was mostly a choice, and something women did only because of necessity; now families rely on that second income, making the mother at home somewhat of an anachronism. What is wrong with a woman who stays home, people think. Well ... nothing actually. In a society where the absurd has become normalised, nothing at all.

So, here's a test for everyone reading this blog. Do you think you are a feminist, or have been infected by feminist thought without realising it? If you agree with any of the core feminist principles below, you are a feminist. If you also think you are a conservative, you might want to think again. Feminism and conservatism are not compatible - you are either one or the other.

At its core, Feminism teaches that:

• Men and women tend to behave differently because of social conditioning, not because there are innate biological and psychological differences between them.
• The chief reason women have been less often represented in the first ranks of public achievement in scholarship, the arts, politics, and war, is that in every human society of which we have evidence, throughout all of recorded history, they were repressed by a patriarchal power structure maintained through force and indoctrination.
• Because large numbers of children in a family constitute both a barrier to the advancement of women and a threat to our ecology, small families should be the cultural norm.
• It is unjust that the consequences of sexual behavior are biologically unequal for men and women. As much as possible, those consequences must be equalized through medical technology and reformed cultural attitudes.
• To find meaning in their lives, women should look first to their careers, rather than to their role as lifegivers, culture bearers, nurturers, and educators of the next generation of human beings.
• Women who regard themselves as mothers first are wasting their education and smothering their talents by staying home to raise their children.

I personally reject all the above core feminist ideas. They are all destructive and all contribute to the disintegration of society. The only way that this can be turned around is for parents to start living in way where they understand that they are the primary raisers of their children and to give that responsibility to other people is to court trouble. As Donna Steichen says:

The sole advantage of living in a lawless time is that you can refuse to be a child of your age. Almost everyone in this workers’ society is too preoccupied with his own place on the treadmill to pay much attention to your eccentricities. What devastated our culture was the flight of mothers from their homes. Society is drowning in the consequences, but nothing prevents you and your family from living your lives differently. Our culture will never be restored until women again take up rearing their children as their chief and indispensable task—and men make the sacrifices needed to support them in that decision. While aggressive forces continue to push the nation toward family disintegration, a healthy resistance movement is awake and growing. It is made up of uncompromising religious believers, pro-lifers, and homeschoolers, both organized and autonomous, along with back-to-the-land agrarians and Tea Party independents. One Virginia women’s organization summed things up in a bumper sticker reading “Be Countercultural: Raise Your Own Kids.”.

Related link : Is Feminism a Heresy? ~ Donna Steichen, Crisis Magazine

Well boo hoo hoo

Well good luck don't let the door hit you on the way out

An associate professor, who has worked at the university for almost 20 years, said changes to his timetable had led him to look for a job overseas.

Quelle horreur He has to take a class at 8am on one day of the week.

He would now be required to take a class at 8am and his last class that day was scheduled to start at 5pm. On another day, he had classes from 9am to 10am and then from 11am to 3pm.

Perhaps a few years working 12 hour shifts in a coal mine might bring about a change of perspective?

Source: Varsity staff angered by changes to timetables

A significant loss of direction and purpose

And as we remember this historic anniversary, we must also continue our efforts to ensure that our daughters have the same rights, freedoms, and opportunities as our sons to fulfill their dreams.”

Barack Obama
On the Anniversary of Roe V Wade

What is anybody's life about? It's the big question. What is your purpose? Do you exist just to satisfy your personal desires? To satiate your lusts whatever they be?

Or is there something bigger than yourself?

For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?

The devastating lie, seductive though it may be, in fullfilling your dreams as an aspiration is that for the vast majority of humanity it cannot be. Only a few can achieve the dizzying heights of rock super stardom while somebody has to dig the coal, milk the cows, seal the roads, dig the drains and all the other things that make the world work.

That's ok - most people accept and make the best of what they have got and get on with it. And the wise and fortunate put their energy and resources not into themselves but their families and children. They dig the coal so that those they love can grow and prosper. And that provides the meaning for everything they do.

And a society and culture that values children and raises them well prospers while societies and cultures that don't wither and die.

We do not value children very much - I saw the term womb turd used to describe a baby the other day. A repulsive term for a precious thing.

Whether you sacrifice children in the name of primitive eugenics as the Spartans did or so that women can aspire to be astronauts as we are doing the net result will always be the same cultural death. This should be obvious but it isn't - alas.

When you are on your death bed contemplating your life, whether man or woman, what will your legacy be? A memory of fancy cocktail parties and now rusting fancy cars or your children and grandchildren?

Update: Powerline's thoughts on this matter

The USA is a very strange country, a very strange country indeed

Apparently the display of the banner at the left is a violation of the US Constitution.

But the very same document protects this
(WARNING: do not click on the above link without your barf bag handy. Readers with weak hearts are advised to use extreme caution when following it).

I wonder if this is what the founding fathers really had in mind when they were framing it?

Bloody Foreigners: The Untold Battle of Britain

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

I really enjoyed watching the above dramatisation on Polish Squadron 303, the men of whom flew in defence of Britain during the Battle of Britain. Despite losing raw recruits left, right and centre, the British were most reticent in allowing the very experienced Polish pilots into the air, and they were only allowed up when one of the pilots broke off from a training run to engage with the enemy. Even then, it was only when their British commander flew with them did he believe they were actually devastatingly effective.

So cool to see it, I highly recommend it.

Hmmmm

The University College London Union will probably never see any irony in this.

The president of a London university atheist society has resigned over a row about an image of the Prophet Muhammad.

The society at University College London (UCL) published an image on its Facebook page showing "Jesus and Mo" having a drink at a bar.

The atheist group was asked by the UCL union to remove it, but refused and started a petition defending its freedom of expression.

A student Muslim group began a counter-petition asking for its removal.

The cartoon in question of course is designed to be offensive to Christians as well as Muslims.

"The society was asked to remove the image because UCLU aims to foster good relations between different groups of students and create a safe environment where all students can benefit from societies regardless of their religious or other beliefs."

Source: Muhammad cartoon row leads to resignation

Quote of the day

The contempt for “women and children first” is not a small loss.

For soft cultures in good times, dispensing with social norms is easy. In hard times, you may have need of them.

Mark Steyn