Unalienable Essence - Sartre and Abortion

Recently, the Democratic Party’s presumptive presidential nominee, Former Vice President Joe Biden infamously said on The Breakfast Club podcast, “You’ve got more questions? Well I tell you what, if you have a problem figuring out whether you’re voting for me or Trump, then you ain’t black.”

This quote by Biden seems to apply the existential idea of Jean-Paul Sartre’s “existence precedes essence” in a roundabout way. In Sartre’s atheistic view, people are involuntarily thrust into existence as meaningless clumps of cells. There is no pre-rational essence, purpose or value for people in the mind of a god. At some point after coming into existence and achieving rationality, a person decides to have a self-imposed purpose, or no purpose at all. Sartre’s philosophy makes sense if there is no God to ascribe essence onto a human life before coming into existence; however, this atheistic view of essence would be shattered if God in fact existed. In theism, our essence, purpose or value are predetermined by God before we come into existence. In this case, the recognition of our personal essence could coincide, or be in communion with God’s mind, at least partially, or be in contradiction with it.

If Biden’s quote and Sartre’s idea were synthesized, there might be a new atheistic possibility. Other people, other gods, may take the place of the Judeo-Christian God in rationally creating our essence. Assuming atheism is true, we could be open to the possibility that someone else could impute their own perception of our essence, purpose or value onto us. (This is not the same interpersonal dynamic as with The Gaze of Sartre’s Being and Nothingness when our subjective essence is objectified by another while we reassert our own subjectivity.) In this case, we could have as many essences as there are people. We may be in agreement with their assignments or not, just like with the Judeo-Christian God, being in communion with some gods and not others.

Joe Biden may not know a particular black person, but if that person has a problem voting for him, he or she is not black in essence to Biden. The former Vice President is assigning essence not on one particular black person, but on an entire subset of black people who don’t vote for him. Black leftists operating the Black Lives Matter organization (BLM) and running his campaign are real black people. Black people in President Trump’s administration, like Dr. Ben Carson, are not black, whether he personally knows them or not.

Consider one black leader who doesn’t seem to be in full communion with Vice President Biden. Black Entertainment Television (BET) founder Robert Johnson told Fox News,

Now whether [Joe Biden] was as he said trying to be a wise guy or whatever, but if you’ve been supposedly hanging out with black people, you’re eight years Obama’s vice president, you don’t think like that. There’s something in you that tells you I can’t be halfway wise guy, halfway cute by telling a black man and by extension every black person listing that if you even think about voting for somebody other than me and then to use this so-called colloquial expression ‘you ain’t black,’ that’s the biggest turn off I’ve heard from a politician in a long time.

It is a question for Biden as to whether Mr. Johnson is black or not according to the “ain’t black” rhetoric. Since Johnson is turned-off by Biden and may not vote for him, it doesn’t seem that the BET founder would be part of the “every black person” subset according to Biden. No doubt Mr. Johnson has another position on his own essence.

Now consider a statement by Hawk Newsome, the black chairman of the Greater New York chapter of BLM. He told the New York Post, “When black people become police officers, they are no longer black. They are blue. And I have been told this by numerous officers.” Newsome’s statement is another instance of one person or group assigning essence, meaning or value to a group of people beyond themselves.

This could have real-world consequences. In view of the quote by Biden, no black life would most likely be physically harmed if he voted for President Trump in 2020 since voting is carried-out in private. It could be another story for black lives on the police force if Newsome’s quote were taken seriously. If enough protestors, BLM members, and Antifa members took Newsome’s idea to heart and really believed that black cops are not really black lives that mattered, real harm could come to their blue marked lives.

Lastly, BLM wrote in 2018 that, “We deserve and thus we demand reproductive justice that gives us autonomy over our bodies and our identities while ensuring that our children and families are supported, safe, and able to thrive.” The pairing of “reproductive justice” and “autonomy over our bodies” in this BLM quote implies that abortion against preborn black boys and girls is demanded. This has the most dangerous implications for black lives due to the hundreds of thousands of black preborn babies killed every year. When preborn persons of color are not wanted by their mothers, they become products of conception in an abortion chamber.

The unwanted designation of a preborn baby by his or her mother is the ultimate imputation of essence, value and meaning by another person. The differences between being designated a wanted or an unwanted human in utero are human or parasite, precious or bio-waste, life or death.

Mother Theresa’s words at her acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 speak to the power of ascribing value and meaning to preborn children.

And I feel one thing I want to share with you all, the greatest destroyer of peace today is the cry of the innocent unborn child. For if a mother can murder her own child in her own womb, what is left for you and for me to kill each other? … [N]obody speaks of the millions of little ones who have been conceived to the same life as you and I, to the life of God, and we say nothing, we allow it. … [Nations] are afraid of the little one, they are afraid of the unborn child, and the child must die because they don’t want to feed one more child, to educate one more child, the child must die.

At the end of the day, if a mother can declare that her innocent unborn child is not really a human child in essence due to asserting autonomy over her body and her identity in order to kill her child, there is nothing left for you or for me, for black lives or for blue lives, for black Biden voters or for all Trump voters from killing each other.

The final solution against violence is found in the truth of each human’s inherent dignity as Imago Dei which is our true essence, given by God to men and women of all skin hues, born and preborn at the moment of our created existence. This is why the Declaration of Independence announced self-evidently that our essence and unalienable Rights came from our Creator, not imparted to us by those in government, by others, or even by ourselves. Nationally reasserting and unapologetically teaching this American Creed in all schools is the key to bringing peace and unity back to our beloved country.

CCP Virus Test Inquisition

I've been having a debate online elsewhere about the use of PCR tests to diagnose the CCP virus in the field, as opposed to the use of PCR tests in a controlled laboratory environment. (CCP = Chinese Communist Party)

It seems like I've turned into an Inquisitor against the PCR tests for the CCP virus. It's almost as if I understand what the Inquisition was doing with Galileo.

Galileo just couldn't scientifically show that heliocentrism was the correct view.

It's the same with the PCR tests for the CCP virus in that there is no scientific evidence (double blind studies/comparative trials) that it is accurate as intended in the field.

All this comes on the back of these videos by Dr. Sam Bailey of New Zealand.

"The Truth About PCR Tests"

"Covid-19: Behind the PCR Curtain"

From the first video, 12: 33 (corman drosten paper, "Detection of 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) by real-time RT-PCR") "[The only peer-reviewed paper on the use of PCR test for clinical use in the field for CCP virus diagnosis] never established how it should be applied in clinical use and this is one of the many reasons why a consortium of scientists have requested its retraction it is also unsound medical practice to claim that covid 19 is diagnosed by a pcr test and that the definition of covid 19 is a positive pcr test."

From the second, 8: 02 "It's important that those of us that respect logic and the scientific method will not allow analytical specificity to be merged into diagnostic specificity and then passed off as a valid medical practice; however, the lack of formalized clinical diagnostic criteria for covid 19 seemed to allow the sleight of hand to be hidden in plain sight."

This is a big deal since the official CCP virus numbers may be, to put it mildly, astronomically off from the real CCP virus numbers which would make all of the lockdowns, closings, and mental & physical health problems the fault of doctors and scientists who should know better. It opens the door to conspiracy theories galore as to why this destruction of lives through false testing and its results were allowed to happen.

(FYI: counterfactuals "New Zealand doctor makes misleading claims about the country’s PCR testing regime in widely shared YouTube video" (FACTCHECK dot AFP dot COM) "Experts slam Christchurch doctor's claims Covid-19 tests are unreliable" (STUFF dot CO dot NZ) https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/288306 "COVID-19: Who fact-checks the fact-checkers?")

Trouble with Bernies

The Bernie meme was an interesting phenomenon. My favorite one was very telling. It was Bernie as a tribble, as in Star Trek's TOS episode Trouble with Tribbles.

I watched it again last night to catch-up my memory on the story line.

Tribbles seem like cute and cuddly animals that make a pleasant purring sound. However, they have a secret. Let them have a little food, and they multiply ten fold.

In the episode, the Enterprise with Capt. Kirk was to guard grain at a space station from Klingons since it was to be used to feed a Federation outpost near the Klingon border.

Unfortunately for the station and Kirk, the grain compartment had air vents that allowed the small tribbles to get into the grain compartment.

The Bernie-as-Tribbles meme shows that Bernie and the (Democratic) Socialists (DSA) will sneak into a hole and eat resources from within. They have taken-up camp in the Democratic Party (DNC) and have taken over its resources. They could take over our country and eat our resources like they did in Venezuela. Then very little to nothing will be left for the rest of us. The DSA members will eat the grain that capitalism provided and give the rest of the country the scraps, like it always ends up happening. Socialism will then leave the country in ruins after capitalism is eaten through.

Gender Theories Purposefully Cancel Christians

Another one bites the dust over transgenderism. Daily wire had an article entitled, Christian Organization Suspended From Twitter After Calling Dr. Rachel Levine ‘A Man Who Believes He Is A Woman.’

I still believe that the powers-that-be are using this issue and LGBTQ+ promotion to cancel Christians, especially Catholics. It divides Christians to the nth degree. It seems like compassion to accept and tolerate (tolerance in the old sense) this disorder, but it's not loving per 1 Corr. 13: 6. "Love does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the Truth."

Once we're out of the way, the utopia may commence.

Pro-Abortion Buffer Zones

Today is the online March for Life. Some have said that it was a cop-out to not march in D.C. I don't know about that since D.C. is mostly a police zone now.

But why is it a police zone? Because a very few (representative?) Trump supporters caused violence and mayhem at the U.S. Capitol building on Jan. 6.

I can't help but see the parallels with the pro-life movement. Extremely very few (representative?) pro-life demonstrators killed abortion doctors. Because of this, countless state/local jurisdictions created buffer zone laws around abortion killing centers to keep mostly peaceful pro-life protestors away.

Recently, some pro-abortion protestors demonstrated in the building of a Catholic Mass. Will there be laws that curb this intimidation for this one offence? Will there be pro-abortion buffer zones? Perhaps because they didn't kill anyone it won't happen.

It's not very fair, but as I always tell myself and my children, life isn't fair. That's what the particular and final judgments are for.

Gender Fluid Children's Book Warning

So, my youngest came home with a Magnus Chase book. The one with the Gods of Asgard (not leaving a link). She's been reading the other mythology books by Rick Riordan. They weren't weird. (I always ask if they're weird just in case we need to talk about it; yes, I need to do better).

Well, I didn't notice that this particular new one with the Gods of Asgard won the Stonewall Book Award. Yes, that's what it's called. The "Stonewall" award. It's "for exceptional merit relating to the GLBT experience." It's from the American Library Association.

Thank goodness my wife looked up the book online. I didn't notice the award glaring on the back of the book. There's a major character who explores/questions his/her gender identity in the book. And my eleven-year-old was going to read it. Got to be more careful.

Being from the American Library Association itself gives me chills since every library is now a minefield for my children. Well, I should have known with the drag queen story hour and such in so many libraries. (I stood in the childrens' section in the Boston Public Library with my children where the abomination started. I probably shouldn't have taken a picture of the big chair near the window where the drag queens read. It was just a tourist attraction as much as any other Boston landmark.)

I should've known that Rick Riordan was going to go full gender confused on the kids. He works for Disney/Hyperion.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture Part III

 I just finished the Star Trek novel The Lost Years.

It's about the Enterprise crew's time between the end of the original series (ST:TOS) and the first movie.

Since it was a while since I watched Star Trek: The Motion Picture, I watched it again.

In 2014, I wrote two blog posts about the movie.

The posts came down to the longing for God along the Augustinian line (no rest for my soul until it rests in Thee, God) and baptism.

Upon re-watching the movie, it actually seems more like the sacrament of the Eucharist.

V'ger wants to touch the creator, who is human.

In reality, we touch and become one in a real, physical way with the One True God through Jesus in the Holy Eucharist. Jesus, the second person of the Trinity physically joins with us in a real and spiritual sense, since he is truly and substantially present in the form of bread and wine that enters our body. He joins with our body.

We don't join together with a halo or energy around us like Decker and V'ger's probe did. However, our lives are never the same.

Abortion in the States

Check out these two diverging, recent headlines from Life Site News.

"Mississippi bill would classify abortion as murder"

"UPDATED: Virginia Senate votes to force taxpayer-funded abortions"

When Roe v. Wade (1973; created abortion right in US) is overturned, it's been said that abortion rights will be determined by each state. From the headlines above, it sure looks like that.

I'm wondering if this is actually not the case. Roe had a sentence about personhood of the preborn (unborn). If personhood is established for the preborn, the fourteenth amendment would protect the preborn from elective abortion death under the due process clause (no taking of life or liberty without due process of law). I wonder if the constitutional conservatives will remember this and actually make abortion itself illegal in all fifty states. I wonder.