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.

Hitting the Mark

Sin is a word and concept that is contemptible in our libertine age. The only "sin" is even implying that an action or feeling is not right for someone else to do or feel. According to former President Obama, a sin is to do something against one's principles; there is no external reference for those principles.

Well, the above approaches to sin would be correct if there were no God. As Sartre wrote, we create our own meaning without reference to any god. His entire philosophical matrix would fall apart if God existed-in-fact.

If God existed, He made you and me a certain way to live rightly. What sin really includes is missing the mark of living in the right way.

Think of a bow, arrow, and target. The goal of bow and arrow shooting at the range of life is to get a bullseye. We have to train, practice, and obtain the correct materials/equipment to get the maximum number of bullseyes. We'll more likely hit the mark.

Then we'll be truly happy.

Heaven is Awesome

Is heaven boring? I have a teenager that thought that it was. In heaven, you just sit around for eternity and get bored, bored, bored without end.

Well, I combined something I learned a long time ago from Real Catholic TV (before it changed to Church Militant) and his love of soccer.

When we die, think of it as a snapshot, a moment in time that lasts forever. At the same time, think of how you feel when you play a really important and excruciatingly tough game that you win.

The experience of heaven is like the feeling of winning that game forever. It never goes away like it does on earth with the Church Militant. As a member of the Church Triumphant, we are always in God's presence. We won the game of life through the sacrifice and resurrection of Jesus, along with our participation with his work. The game was a killer, but the victory was a miracle beyond understanding. We are teammates of Jesus in His Church. He purchased the grace of forgiveness of our sins through the cross for the heaven win. Heaven is awesome.

Violence is Verboten Except

Yes, violence is verboten. But, as I wrote earlier this week, this does not seem to apply to the left, media, or Democrats.

Antifa violence at the Capitol

 

Mrs. Hughes of MRCTV (Media Research Council TV) had some things to say about this double standard which is maddening. It's worth the listen.

Ihr Kampf of the Left

The left, the legacy media, and big tech all in concert wish half the country into the cornfield.

It reminds me of Keith Olbermann's rant again. It's so telling!

[Trump] and his enablers and his supporters and his collaborators and the Mike Lees and the William Bars and the Sean Hannitys and the Mike Pences and the Rudy Giulianis and the Kyle Rittenhouses and the Amy Coney Barretts must be prosecuted and convicted and removed from our society while we try to rebuild it and to rebuild the world Trump has nearly destroyed by turning it over to a virus. Remember it even as we dream of a return to reality and safety and the country for which our Forefathers died that the fight is not just to win an election but to win it by enough to chase at least for a moment Trump and the Maggots off the stage and then try to clean up what they left. [Maggots = MAGA supporters]

They so want people to the right of them to go away to another country or jail. For what? For not going against the current dully-elected President of the United Sates.

They want unity in the 1930 German and the Mohammedan sense: peace through subjugation and seclusion. This will not bring about unity.

As Ben Shapiro said on Jan. 18 (at 27:58),

And then people wonder why the country is so divided. The country is so divided because you have one half of the country that would like to excise the other half of the country. That does tend to create a few divisions.

The left has been struggling (Ihr Kampf = their struggle) for this outcome since Marx was writing poetry.

Mr. D'Souza on Olbermann and 1930 Germany:
"Keith Olbermann’s Latest Rant Against Trump Uses Language From Germany in the 1930s"

Inverting Martin Luther King's Message

What would it sound like to invert Martin Luther King's message? To judge people by their skin color and not their character, right? Well, that's what the Marxist Left wants the world to do with the Marxist Frankfurt School's Critical Race Theory (CRT; no not an old-school clunky monitor, silly).

One of the many things I've been wondering about for a long while now is the double standard between the violence on the left and right. Violent rioting by Black Lives Matter, Inc. (BLM) and Antifa is given a pass, along with the left who excuses them, while rioting by the right at the US Capitol building on 1/6/2021, which is condemned by almost all of the Right (including myself), is an excuse to lump all of the Right into brutes who must be cancelled off the internet, fired from their jobs, and excluded by polite society.

Well, last week, Mrs. Stuckey provided an answer with an interview with, of all people, a person with a PhD in math, Dr. James Lindsay.

CRT posits that all white people are racist no matter what. There is nothing at all white people can do about it except grovel and give people of color everything they want, especially leftist policies (never right policies like school choice).

The interview might be the most important political video of the decade since it explains why we are so divided. It is positive, or willful, division. This is unlike Marx and Hegel's contention that the dialectic between groups naturally cause this division.

If you're unfamiliar with much of the CRT vocabulary, Mrs. Stuckey has a great video on it below.

Dr. King would not be happy with this inversion.

The Olbermann Left

The Left and/or Never-Trumpers have called for the impeachment and/or incarceration of President Trump for his alleged incitement of a riot on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C on January 6, 2021. They have gone the way of Keith Olbermann. Last year, around the time Amy Coney Barrett was confirmed to the Supreme Court (Sept.-Oct. 2020), he said

 

[Trump] and his enablers and his supporters and his collaborators and the Mike Lees and the William Bars and the Sean Hannitys and the Mike Pences and the Rudy Giulianis and the Kyle Rittenhouses and the Amy Coney Barretts must be prosecuted and convicted and removed from our society while we try to rebuild it and to rebuild the world Trump has nearly destroyed by turning it over to a virus. Remember it even as we dream of a return to reality and safety and the country for which our Forefathers died that the fight is not just to win an election but to win it by enough to chase at least for a moment Trump and the Maggots off the stage and then try to clean up what they left.

(This led to a petition on change dot org against Olbermann for inciting violence here.)

Mr. Olbermann de-personified Trump enablers (Maggots = MAGA supporters), among whom I count myself since I think Trump is better than any radical Democratic candidate. He called for the arbitrary arrest of approximately half of the U.S. voting population. (Hello, Marxist countries!)

Tech giants Google (Alphabet), Facebook, Apple, and Amazon have already placed into virtual jail Parler, the neutral/libertarian alternative to Leftist Twitter. Twitter and Facebook both banned Trump from their platforms. Financial institutions have banned anything associated with Trump.

And for what?

According to the House Resolution for Trump’s second impeachment, the President incited the violence at the Capitol building on Jan. 6. However, at the rally, Trump explicitly said that everyone should “peacefully” protest. He said that he won the 2020 presidential race by a landslide; the protest was titled “Stop the Steal.” This does not in itself incite violence. The GA Governor was supposedly told to commit fraud and was threatened by the president. This did not incite violence on the capitol. Telling the protestors to “march on the capitol” and “fight” is general political speech that is well known to mean to stand up for your rights and protest along with persuading peacefully.

Further, Trump’s tweets were not incendiary. Calling people patriots and asking them to fight for their rights is not inciting violence.

What it really comes down to is that the protestors are responsible for their actions. Many protestors attempted to stop the destruction and vandalism of the Capitol by other protestors (or Antifa?).

Pres. Trump not being responsible for the violent protestors is similar to not holding Al Sharpton, Pres. Obama, or Bernie Sanders responsible for the action of their violent/riotous supporters.

In 1995, Al Sharpton was accused of starting a riot against Jews.
https://www.newsweek.com/james-hodgkinson-shooting-sanders-supporter-625792
https://lidblog.com/sharpton-incited-freddys-massacre/
https://www.bizpacreview.com/2021/01/10/cnn-commentator-steps-in-it-big-time-with-al-sharpton-comparison-to-u-s-capitol-riot-1014546/

During Obama’s reign, he was accused of inspiring BLM protestors to shoot police for being police.

Bernie Sanders was accused of inspiring a Leftist to shoot Republicans at a congressional baseball game for taking away healthcare from the elderly. (ht Ben Shapiro at the Daily Wire:
24:47 Sanders incited violence against Republicans.
25:26 Obama incited violence against cops
26:21 Sharpton incited violence against Jews.)

However, Sharpton, Obama, and Sanders are still outstanding examples of citizenry to Big Tech and the Left. Their speech was not construed out of context to be inciting violence. They were not banned from society and threatened to be jailed as Olbermann demanded of Trump.

What it comes down to is the double standard that is applied to the Left, Right, and those that support either side. Social Media and the Legacy Media have made the double standard worse by withholding information that negatively effects the Left and exaggerating the information that negatively effects the Right and Trump. Plus, dividing and raising the temperature of political discourse helps their bottom line to the detriment of the entire country they have a responsibility to serve.

I pray that the cancel culture, unhinged rhetoric, and biased interpretation of the Left and/or Never-Trumpers are deescalated so that more widespread violence is not inspired, if not cause a Civil War. China and Russia would be pleased if that happened.

 

(More left-inspired violence by left politicians.)

Old Meme - New Time

There is an old meme below about the US, before memes were as big as they are now in certain circles.

The northern part of the US and Canada are the United States of Canada and the southern part is Jesusland.

This says so much. This was originally made by those who prefer to be in the red, northern part of the map above. (How unjust is it that Jesus is treated like a shunned man? It reminds me of something...)

The enlightened U.S. Canadians believe that Jesus lovers are freaks, rubes, and backward. In reality it is the reverse. It is the north that want us to progress backward to the time of oligarchs, dependency, and decay (sort of like in Russia, come to think of it).

What I now see on the map above is the Church of Rome and Constantinople on a mission to the hordes of the barbarian North.

(BTW, most of these map memes of Jesusland have PA in the north. This is one of the few that doesn't.)

My Wife Versus the Current Dark Age

What signifies a dark age? An age in which the barbarians overrun a civilization. We are now suffering in such an age in the West. I believe historians will not label our epoch as the information age or space age; this is the real Dark Age.

We have abandoned our Western heritage for Sartreland. We no longer look outside ourselves for Truth that saves but look inward for our little truth that decays, withers, and dies.

My wife has taken this on with most of her time. She is a classical school teacher. Truth, beauty, and goodness through Jesus and His Church are her weapons against the barbarians.

Please consider enrolling in an online classical school or in-person classical school for this or next year. You can join my wife in saving the West.

Black Lives Matter Inc. Opinions

Opinions of Three Black Men Who Are Honest about the Official BLM Organization

FYI: I wrote this post elsewhere in June 2020.

The partial-transcripts of their opinions are below and at https://drive.google.com/file/d/15-76bSEN4KxjkKA4yOF1YuggLaWJs6_A/view?fbclid=IwAR1jcQ9uu6d99ScOrPJ4iBcg41WvJCjcE3o32ZIIA4ZA65dC_cRTJe2BOB8 

(1) George Floyd Was Murdered - An Honest Perspective [by Zuby]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jINiEOE2sQ
(2) 'Black Lives Matter' Is Not Helping Blacks [by Derryck Green]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxLi-6RtmUQ
(3) Why I don't support # BlackLivesMatter [by Eric D July]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JocOjvPizzY

**Partial Transcripts:
Opinions of Three Black Men Who Are Honest about the Official BLM Organization
(1) George Floyd Was Murdered - An Honest Perspective [by Zuby]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jINiEOE2sQ
2:00 George Floyd was murdered. There is no excuse.
2:30 Zuby does not have BLM/anti-police sentiment (not activist).
2:40 He is critical of BLM because they are silent on the 99% of black people who are killed in US.
4:49 If the optics do not line-up with BLM's narrative (white on black violence/bl on bl violence), BLM ignores.
3:07 Of course he is in agreement with the "black lives matter" sentiment (as well as "all lives matter"). Almost everyone agrees with that.
3:15 He believes in womb to the tomb, human lives matter. It doesn't matter if man, woman, baby, unborn baby, adult, orange, yellow, white.
3:43 He believes all humans have inherent value.
3:46 He doesn't get caught-up in race bating.
3:51 He is also not hyper-emotional.
3:57 Nearly all contentious cases are not clear, there are other circumstances going on (4:13).
4:15 However, in this situation, Mr. Floyd was hand-cuffed and neutralized.
4:27 There is no self-defense here.
4:38 This could have happened to a white man, Asian man, white woman, black woman. It wouldn't matter.
4:47 People are getting bogged-down in "bull crap" like they always do, and it gets so tiresome.
4:51 This is why he made the video.
5:00 People who try to defend this police officer sound like clowns.
5:27 Even if Mr. Floyd was casing people with a chainsaw, this is still murder.
5:33 It would still be a massive error by the police involved.
5:46 In this circumstance, after subduing Mr. Floyd, there is no reason to kill him. There is no excuse.
6:12 It's extremely rare to have a video of police killing suspects in cold-blood like here.
6:31 The officer knew what he was doing.
7:33 Four other officers, including Latino [Asian?], were present and did nothing.
7:42 This is evidence that this this is not a black and white thing.
8:05 Only about 1% of police officers would do this. But what about those standing around?
8:30 This act was evil since he didn't need to kill him. Sometimes killing/harming is justified, but not here.
9:30 People are trying to make this a left-right thing.
10:40 Police violence in Minneapolis was also against white woman.
10:49 "When you have principles, race becomes a non-issue. That becomes a distraction."
11:09 Issue is not right-left, black-white.
12:00 Worse case of police violence was against white male in a hotel. The police defendant in case got off scot-free and got a payout for it.
12:15 Zuby is not social justice warrior (SJW). He believes in justice. Just justice.
12:25 Nobody is above the law. Citizen or police.
12:35 We can't afford to have bad apples in the police force.
12:50 They have a badge and a gun.
13:30 They have the authority to kill people legally in many cases.
14:15 There's nothing that can justify Mr. Floyd's killing. Even if he was a moment before chasing someone with a chainsaw.
(2) 'Black Lives Matter' Is Not Helping Blacks [by Derryck Green]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxLi-6RtmUQ
0:25 Derryck Green has done extensive research on the civil rights movement, black power movement, and BLM.
0:55 He believes police brutality is an issue.
1:15 People should rightly protest about police officer's actions that killed Mr. Floyd.
1:20 There are a lot more "pressing issues" that should be "prioritized above" the issue of police brutality if we are serious about changing the way black communities are lived in the country currently.
1:35 This does not trivialize George Floyd's death.
1:43 Justice should be rightly meted-out.
1:48 There are so many other issues that impact black families and black lives.
2:05 (Will Witt) If BLM really cared about black lives, BLM should focus on those issues that really effect black lives daily.
2:25 (Green) BLM is primarily focused on police brutality.
2:28 The numbers of unarmed blacks killed by police each year is almost a statistical zero. This is not to trivialize the lives that were lost (2:38). They should be put in proper context.
2:53 One of the issues that should be prominent is black marriage rates. Black marriage rates are under thirty percent. (Whites are ~50%.)
3:05 Black parents having kids in marriage would improve black lives.
3:09 Another issue is education.
3:45 Increasing minimum wage hurts black lives. (Prices out of market.)
4:25 Reducing government to help blacks thrive.
4:44 White Antifa members support BLM destroy black businesses.
5:20 Antifa are social opportunists.
5:25 BLM had an obligation to shut down Antifa/riots that hurt black lives and businesses.
5:40 Riots turn people away who would normally listen to your cause/pleas for justice.
6:15 It costs a lot of money to set up in city areas. Who would want to come to cities knowing it’s a tinderbox ready to explode.
6:43 BLM not shutting Antifa down in the beginning of the riots/violence eliminated BLM moral authority.
7:40 The left frames the parameters of the debate. They force you to operate within those parameters, and if you don't, you are evil and not with them.
8:10 The left and right were in agreement that the death of Mr. Floyd was a travesty and the officers should be fired and arrested.
8:15 It wasn't enough. Rioting was not the answer.
8:25 One way to help black lives is not to riot. Many people who live in those communities work in those communities where businesses were destroyed.
8:44 But businesses will come back (like Covid). We don't know that, esp. after extended periods of time.
9:30 BLM is a movement to use white guilt and black rage to achieve their aims.
9:40 Affirmative action is absolutely racist.
10:00 White people kneeling to black people is racist in itself.
10:09 Going back on blacks integrating into society. It's almost segregation again.
10:29 Affirmative action and BLM won't end because they are ready-made vehicles that white people can support to disprove their racism in advance, however counter-productive they are.
11:00 Without coerced gov't intervention you would not be successful.
11:15 Handouts are at the expense of black development it stifles black flourishing.
11:22 Also has stigma of lower standards. Never be rest assured what accomplished were on own merits.
11:32 BLM same way. Kneeling is patronizing: we can't deal with a black person like a regular human being.
11:45 We don't think their emotionally mature enough to deal with life separately and distinct from race. Not that we should ignore it. We have to show we're not racist.
12:00 It's like patting them on the head. That's offensive.
12:20 White groveling doesn't solve the problem; it shows weakness.
12:33 White guilt is the leverage to black power.
12:55 We should treat blacks as equals.
13:25 Treat blacks as equals and peers, not children.
13:32 (Witt) We live in the generation of virtue signaling.
14:15 (Green) White guilt/privilege thrust upon whites, and if left unchecked it would expand white supremacy.
14:40 Social media is substitute for real activism. A black square means absolutely nothing.
15:19 Original civil rights leaders marched to help US live up to ideals of Dec. of Ind.
15:38 Advocate for better schools instead of social media virtue signaling.
15:55 Advocate for blacks to get married and stay married?
16:03 It's very difficult work.
16:22 (Witt) Don't blame people putting up black squares.
16:55 (Green) Differences between civil rights movement (MLK/non-violence) and black power movements (black panthers).
17:50 Civil rights movement believed US just didn't live up to ideals of Dec. of Ind.
18:28 Civil rights movement born and thrived in black churches.
18:48 Black power movements wanted separatism. (18:57 black nationalism)
19:50 Black power movements coopted by white left.
19:58 Black fists.
20:53 BLM won't convince anyone who already doesn't have their ideological presuppositions.
22:30 What happens to conservative blacks (or blacks not on the left) when they speak-out.
23:00 There is strength in numbers. More conservatives (or blacks not on the left) speaking out will help black lives.
23:50 More white conservatives (or whites not on the left) should speak out to help black lives.
24:55 Rejecting BLM as a movement is not rejecting the idea that black lives matter.
(3) Why I don't support # BlackLivesMatter [by Eric D July]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JocOjvPizzY
3:14 Solutions should also be good for freedom purposes.
4:30 Black lives matter to who?
6:30 Be self-reliant.
8:00 Woke police, not demolish them is goal.
9:15 BLM corporate movement.
9:40 BLM: Please stop beating us but also include us.
11:15 BLM very leftist movement.
11:30 Eric's not like Candace, but don't hate her.
12:00 POC, what is that?
12:45 LGBT thing. Not hating on them, though.
12:55 BLM started with LGBT thing.
13:00 It's a leadership problem.
13:15 Eric doesn't want your civil rights laws or pity.
13:22 "This whole movement is about white folk feeling as if black men and black women’s world can't move unless they move it for them. Let's just keep it real."
13:40 It would be one thing if they [BLM] said to keep the hell out of our way.
14:05 Self-loathing whites helping out blacks.
14:30 Human beings are human beings and there will always be disparities.
14:40 Not interested in evening the odds [in outcome percentages].
14:55 Putting more black cops and politicians is not the solution.
15:48 Worried about what is right or wrong.
16:25 There is a problem in black communities. Cultural problem. Pains them to address issues.
17:40 Welfare status
17:55 Baby mommas
15:45 Marriage direct link to positive outcomes.
19:20 Drug problems
19:40 Prison assumptions offensive
20:50 Raised by mother
21:20 Mother taught him that her situation was not preferable as single mother
21:50 It's ok to acknowledge the preference even when it's not present
21:55 People that terrorize their community are bad people. (He was a bad person at one time too.)
23:30 Tale of when first called unblack when said didn't want handouts.
23:40 Kill and be bad person is what it is to be black, but if don't want handouts, not black.
23:50 Addressing cultural problems require responsibility.
24:15 "I'm the victim" (despite the experience of black immigrants).
24:39 Legacy of slavery? Like come on dog. No.
25:47 This is white supremacy.
26:50 Get black people armed and trained.
27:40 Privatizing police or community police.
28:35 More woke police?
29:15 Why ignoring statism and focusing on racism instead of having self-ownership.
29:35 "Holding signs rioting is not about to save them 'cause you must of forgot that that's the power you gave them."
29:45 Stockholm syndrome.
30:00 "obedient"
30:25 Eric's against the state.

Love(1) Is Not Love(2)

I grew up in a town northeast of a big city named Adelphia. The city's name means "City of Love." Never heard of it? It's in the U.S.

Of course, the real name is Philadelphia which means "City of Brotherly Love."

But I heard that "Love is Love." I wonder how can this be true?

Are all these loves equivalent?

• Sister/Brother
• Mother/Son
• Father/Daughter
• Dog/Dog owner
• Gamer/Mindcraft 
• Husband/Wife

The Greeks had at least four words for love that can be found in the book The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis.

They are (according to Wikipedia)

Storge – empathy bond
Philia – friend bond
Eros – romantic love
Agape – unconditional "God" love

or (affection - friendship - eros - charity)

Eros can also be a desirous love for chocolate or video games.

Lets put the letters of the loves next to the list above. Storge = S; Philia = P; etc.

• Sister/Brother S/P/A
  
• Mother/Son S/A
  
• Father/Daughter S/A
  
• Dog/Dog owner S/P
  
• Gamer/Mindcraft E
  
• Husband/Wife S/P/E/A

The above listing may be debatable, but it can be seen that love is not love in all cases. Husband/Wife love is the ultimate love (includes all four) that has the potential to create new humans that can love.

May we always cringe whenever we read "Love is Love." It's not.

Answering Hitchens's Impossible Question

Let's start the year with a religious post and attempt to address the late Christopher Hitchens's "impossible question."

The question is, "I challenge you to find one good or noble thing which cannot be accomplished without religion." Or name something good a believer can do that an Atheist cannot.

I found two answers by Christians on YouTube here and here. There is one by W. L. Craig on the internet somewhere.

Years ago, I read Prof. Dawkins's The God Delusion where he suggested that we create a believing machine to get around the obvious answer to this question: only believers can believe in God, only believers can love God with all their heart, soul, and strength. According to Dawkins, the machine could believe in God for us so we can go about our business. Prof. Dawkins also derided parents who taught their impressionable children about any religion, especially Christianity with its belief in hell: it is on par with physical child abuse.

From this alone, I can report that no Atheist, or non-theist could believe or teach positively about the Judeo-Christian God, the only living and true God.

But is this good?

I'm part of a non-denominational Habitat-for-Humanity-like apostolate called Good Works in a poor part of PA. At the beginning of the work day, we have a small talk that comes from the Bible and ask for prayer requests. We then pray together with the home owner before we work at the worksite. If someone is not Christian, they can come to the work site after this. From my observation, the Christians show up more often than the non-Christians to work on the houses.

St. Mother Theresa of Calcutta always made it a priority to pray and attend mass before helping the poorest of the poor, to take scheduled breaks for this throughout the day. I'm not Mother Theresa, but it says something that belief in God motivates more consistent and harder work for the poor who are Jesus in disguise (Matthew 25: 31-46).

However, this does not actually address the most important action: loving God Himself. Love requires action. We do this by receiving Jesus bodily into ourselves in the sacrament of Communion and being forgiven in the sacrament of Reconciliation. No non-theist would ever do this in Truth, only mock and/or invert it.

I wonder why debaters against Hitchens didn't say this type of answer every time? Where they afraid that Hitchens would shoot them down? Could it perhaps be that most were Protestant, who believe in sola fides? Love requires more than faith; it requires works, some only Christians can do.

Most Important Books in 2020

Most important (secular) books that I read in 2020:

1a. 1984 by George Orwell

1b. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

2. Bully of Asia: Why China's Dream is the New Threat to World Order by Steven W. Mosher

3. United States of Socialism: Who's Behind It. Why It's Evil. How to Stop It by Dinesh D'Souza

Why are these books important?

1a./1b. Both these books taken together explain and emotionally inform how elites and non-elites conform to social/financial top-tier elites and governments.

1984 explains how the elites manipulate mostly other elites to think how Big Brother wants them to think and live.

Brave New World explains how the non-elites cope with their circumstances by lulling themselves into submission - at least getting them out of the way of the elites - by drugs and entertainment. Think opium crisis and entertainment-imbibing as reason for/ends of living. Marx had it backwards: real, life-directing religion leads people to stand up to oppression (think Pope Saint John Paul II in Poland, "We want God.") while atheism leads to laissez-faire hedonism (often a type of Buddhism).

These books should be standard reading for all high school students.

2. Dr. Mosher (China expert who is fluent in Chinese) powerfully explains that China's effort to be the world's superpower is more than simply spreading communism. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) thinks, much like the former Chinese emperors, that Chinese culture/race is the best in the same way that the Nazi's believed that their culture/race was the best. That culture/race should be dominant over all aspects of the world's life and governments. China is to be the sole world hegemon.

3. Mr. D'Souza's most important contribution in his book is showing, in eye-popping detail, how the currently-attempted Socialist/Marxist takeover of the US parallels almost exactly with the takeover of Venezuela. This includes the race wars, gun confiscation, removing statues/rewriting history, and overall political rhetoric.