The Russo-Ukraine War—A Timeline

As with most reporting of current events, the presentation of the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine is distorted. Both sides are engaged in their own propaganda. It is said that truth is the first casualty of war and in the case of this one the falsehoods span many decades. The first thing to do, to get beyond this, is explore the history leading to to the present…

862 —1242

East Slavic tribes, in the area of modern day Ukraine, Belarus and Russia unite to become the Kievan Rus’ people.

980 — 1015

Vladimir the Great brought Christianity to the Kievan Rus’ people. Often referred to, in the West, as the Eastern Orthodox, this tradition (practiced from Egypt all the way to Greece) broke from the Roman Catholics in 1054.

1237 — 1480

The Mongols invade and, laying siege to Kiev in 1240, come out victorious. This begins a period of Mongol rule.

1547 — 1721.

Mongol rule fades. The Muscovy dynasty rises. This Tsarist Russia, with periods of chaos and conflict, including what is referred to as a Time of Troubles from 1598 to 1613, ends with the rise of Peter the Great and brings us to the modern age.

1721 to 1917

The Russian Empire expands from historical Kievan Rus’ territory and, stretching around 8,800,000 square miles, becomes the third largest empire in history behind the British and Mongol empires.

March 22, 1917

Tsar Nicholas II and his family are murdered by Bolshevik revolutionaries. Their dynastic rule over the people of Ukraine, Moscow and the entire Russian Empire, which had been weakened by their involvement in WW1, was replaced by a Communist state. The USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, aka Soviet Union) was very antagonistic towards Christians.

Orthodox Cathedral demolished by Soviets

1922–1952

Joseph Stalin, an ethnic Georgian, becomes the General Secretary and begins his rule over the Soviet Union. His reign is marked by the Great Purge, from 1936 to 1938, when from 700,000 to 1.2 million people are killed, the number including many Orthodox priests, political dissidents are rounded to be sent to Gulags.

1929

The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) is formed in Vienna. This group was known for assassinations of Poles, Russians and Jews. It was later supported by the CIA as part of an effort to undermine the Soviet Union and led to a bloody insurrection.

1932-33

Of Stalin’s atrocities, the Ukrainian famine or Holodonor, when 3.9 million were starved to death, stands out. This suffering directly the result of a collectivist plot against successful private farmers. This murderous Soviet campaign was covered-up with the help of the New York Times and Walter Duranty, a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, who wrote glowing reports about Stalinism.

June 23, 1941

Stepan Bandera, the leader of the far-right Ukrainian nationalism, reaches out to Nazi invaders offering his support in exchange for an independent Ukrainian state. Bandera is responsible for the brutal massacre of ethnic Poles, from 1943 to 1945, and is celebrated today as the father of Ukraine. Ukrainian paratroopers (and nationalist priests) today chant “Our father is Bandera, Ukraine is our mother!”

Poles murdered by Ukrainian nationalists

1941—1944

Vladimir Spiridonovich Putin and Maria Ivanovna Shelomova struggle to survive the brutal German siege of Leningrad (now the city of St Petersburg) and are nearly killed. Vladimir, who lost a couple brothers in the battles, was wounded by a grenade in the fighting and crippled for life. The pair would meet after the war, get married and have a son named Vladimir Putin in 1952.

April 4, 1949

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (or NATO) is formed in Washington DC as an alliance to oppose the Soviet Union. The Warsaw Pact was created in May of 1955 as a response.

February 19, 1954

Crimea, that was part of Russia since being annexed from the Ottomans back in 1783, is gifted to Ukraine by the Soviets as a gesture of friendship. This ethnically Tatar and Russian speaking region is the site of a key warm water Russian naval base.

Oct 16, 1962—Oct 29, 1962

The Soviet Union responded to the United States putting nuclear missiles Italy and Turkey by sending their own missiles to Cuba. The Kennedy administration, after the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, authorized a CIA campaign of terrorism and sabotage within Cuba, answers with a naval blockade. The Cuban Missile Crisis ended when Moscow backed down after a secret deal where the offending US missiles were removed in Europe.

Nikita Khrushchev, Fidel Castro, and JFK

1979—1989

A pro-Soviet government government takes power in Kabul in 1978 and tries to counter Islamic traditionalism with steps towards modernization. They invite Soviet military advisors and this leads to troops being deployed to help the Afghans suppress the insurgency. The CIA supplied the Afghan rebels and foreign fighters (including a Saudi named Osama Bin Laden) the Mujahideen, with weapons. The Soviets withdrew after a humiliating costly affair.

December 26, 1991

The Soviet Union collapsed, Warsaw Pact dissolved, and Soviet republics (including Ukraine) given their independence. NATO begins an eastward expansion, absorbing former Soviet republics. Russia falls into disarray as oligarchs partner with West to exploit the vast resources of that country and Ukrainian also becomes known for extreme corruption.

March 24, 1999—June 10, 1999

NATO intervenes on behalf of Kosovo rebels, who had been resisting Serbian authorities, and then demands that the country be partitioned along ethnic lines.

December 31, 1999

Vladimir Putin became the acting President of the Russian Federation when Boris Yeltsin unexpectedly resigns. From 2000 to 2004, after winning a special election, he begins to reform the country and reign in the oligarchs forcing them to answer to his government in order to keep their power. Putin opposes the expansion of NATO to his border, regarding it as a threat to Russian sovereignty, and makes this red line clear.

Nov 21, 2013—Feb 22, 2014

The democratically elected President of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, decided to keep closer ties with Moscow over the European Union. This leads to protests in Maidan Nezalezhnosti (Independence Square) in Kiev. The protestors occupied the square, they had their own food production, medical and broadcasting facilities, along with that stages for speeches and performances, as well as their own security forces. This boiled over when snipers, still unidentified, fired on the crowd. Both police and protesters were killed in this attack. Prior to this escalation high ranking US officials, then Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and the Ambassador to Geoffrey Pyatt, picked the replacement of Yanukovych who is later overthrown in the Maidan coup.

May 12, 2014

Hunter Biden, son of the then US Vice-President, Joe Biden, is given a seat on the board of Burisma Holdings, as a “legal advisor” and is paid over a million for this service. He gave Burisma executives access to his politically powerful father and later the elder Biden would brag, live on television, about a quid pro quo that got a Ukrainian prosecutor fired who had been investigating Burisma corruption.

Feb 20, 2014 – Mar 21, 2014

The Russians, believing their naval base in Crimea would be threatened by the new pro-West government, moved quickly to secure it from the Kievian nationalists. They already had a significant military presence there, it is a Russian speaking area, and the Crimean status referendum, held on March 16, 2014, had 87% turnout and was 97% in favor of reunification with Russia.

April 6, 2014–February 24, 2022

The Russian-speaking Donbass region also wanted more autonomy, they opposed Kiev’s efforts at “Ukrainianization,” which sought to erase their Russian heritage, and eventually declared their independence. These break-aways were invaded by the Kievan regime, starting a war that killed over 14,000 and lasted nearly eight years before the current Russian intervention.

Donbass, when nobody outside Ukraine cared about the war.

May 2, 2014

Protests around the country became violent again when the right-wing nationalists, who favored the new post-coup government that had been installed in Kiev, forced opposition demonstrators into a building that was set a blaze. This incident, the Odessa Massacre, burned alive 48 people, some of those who did manage to escape were beaten by the mob. Like the shootings used to justify the Maiden insurrection, nobody was arrested or charged for this mass murder.

April 21, 2019

Volodymyr Zelenskyy, a comedian, groomed by an oligarch, wins the second round of voting in a landslide victory and becomes the President of Ukraine. He promised to bring peace and end corruption. There was not much success on either front. Human rights abuses have only increased during his presidency and especially after the start of the Russo-Ukraine War.

February 24, 2022

After massing their troops on the Ukrainian border, Russia demands that the shelling of Donbass cease. When the attacks continue, the “special military operation” begins, which is condemned in the West as an “unprovoked invasion,” and is now effectively a proxy war between NATO and Russia. The bloodshed continues to the time of this writing.

Vladimir versus Volodymyr

While many commentators, on both sides, want to present this as a battle of good and evil, it is really a fight between spiritual (even actual) cousins. Those who say that Russia is the aggressor neglect that the war began years ago with the Ukrainian nationalists and their campaign against separatists, that this came about as a result of a coup apparently orchestrated by or at least with the direct aid of the US State Department. If Ukraine can be independent of Russia, or Kosovo from Serbia, why not Donbass? And who says that the Soviets handing over Crimea, in the 1950s, is more valid than the referendum that brought it back?

The US “rules-based international order” only makes sense for those who share the bias of those spoon-fed by US media. The legacy of CIA support for terrorism abroad and violent overthrow democratic makes anything done by Russia seem like child’s play. The US acts with impunity around the world—provoking sanctioning, and invading with destructive campaigns of “shock and awe” anyone who dares to oppose its imperial aims. The US really had no business playing king maker in the backyard of Russia. The US enforces the Monroe Doctrine in the Western Hemisphere, why would Russia (or China) be happy with our military expansion in their own areas of national interest?

Sure, Russia isn’t faultless, by any means, and Putin is no St. Vladimir either. But, that said, nor is Zelenskyy or the Kievan (Kyivan) nationalist regime he represents. Truthfully, the most significant difference between the two sides of the war may actually be their Slavic language dialects. Which is to say it isn’t much. Both sides commit war crimes, both lie about the other side, both also share the same religious and ethnic heritage. They are natural allies, given their shared Kievan Rus’ history, which is probably why Western powers want to instigate and encourage the division. It is a family feud, a fratricidal war, and benefits only the US military-industrial complex.

9/11 In Retrospect—Collapse of the New World Order

Visiting the site of the Twin Towers again has revealed how much my perspective of the has changed over the past few decades since the attacks. The World Trade Centers, built in the 1970s, had once dominated the Financial District of Manhattan and represented both the pinnacle of engineering and the economic might of the American empire.

Like the Pentagon struck the same day, they were symbols of American dominance. Pillars of a system that, prior to that sunny September day, had seemed invulnerable. The United States had won the Cold War, demonstrated unrivaled military might in the Gulf War (all but erasing the bitter aftertaste of Vietnam) and the 1990s felt almost as if it was the ‘end of history‘ with the final victory of liberal democracy over the world.

The NYC skyline is impressive even today, yet that September day the delusion of being untouchable had been wiped away and the trust of the system has continued to degrade as more are seeing the truth:

1) Our government can’t keep us safe. Many forget now that 9/11 was not the first attack on the World Center twins. In 1993 a truck bomb had been detonated in the parking garage of the South Tower and could’ve taken down the towers had it been better placed. But despite this, despite the billions we spent on intelligence agencies, the US had missed multiple opportunities to take down Osama Bin Laden. All of our military strength was useless against a small group of dedicated men using box cutters and airliners.

2) They made us bleed. While many around the world were horrified at the images, there were others who danced with glee as shock and awe covered Manhattan in dust. It was a propaganda coup for those who opposed US hegemony as much as anything else, it proved that there could be repercussions for our policing and globalist policies. Sure we would go on to kill Bin Laden. But he more than accomplished his goal. Not only did he bring down the towers, and strike the Pentagon, but he also goaded us into spending trillions on a fruitless war on terror.

But, beyond this, in the past twenty years, I have gone from being an apologist for the second invasion of Iraq to now being very deeply disillusioned. And I’m not alone. The world is no longer what it was in the 1990s where the US leads the way to a new age. Rather many are starting to see through the shiny facade and realize that the system in its current form serves a few at the top. But our banks, our government, and corporations routinely conspire to rob us. There is no free market or true representatives of the people, it is a rigged game and the ‘house’ always wins.

Walking past Wall Street I remarked “This is the heart of the beast” and it is. The money flowing through this place is the lifeblood of a nation, the very center of the current world order, and what enables the endless wars of our political regime. The towers were not random targets. Nor was the attack because they hate freedom and democracy, but rather it was a response to the imposition of US policies on their countries and the never-ending presence of our military in their own backyard to serve US economic interests that they resented.

As wrong as it was to murder 2,977 people, this ‘collateral damage’ has long been a part of war, many Americans have no moral qualms about nuking the cities of Hiroshima or Nagasaki, and the US has killed hundreds of thousands of non-combatants. So why is it such an outrage if others in the world employ a similar total war strategy against us?

If America once represented an ideal, that is fading due to relentless attacks by the left and the growing disillusionment of everyone else. There has been a transition, over the last few decades in particular, from the time when athletes would wrap themselves in the flag to this time it has become controversial and even contemptible. Even conservatives no longer trust national institutions and have embraced a myriad of conspiracy theories—including many about the 9/11 attacks.

Personally, I do not believe that the official narrative is entirely a lie. I believe a group of men, funded by Al Qaeda, hijacked four fuel-laden airliners, two of them were flown into the towers, one struck the Pentagon and a fourth crashed into a field in Pennsylvania. I do not see a need for a controlled demolition to explain why the buildings collapsed. No this is not to say that our government didn’t know more prior, opportunistically exploit or even facilitate the attacks. There’s simply a better explanation of everything that happened that day and since.

The fragility of our world order…

As a young person everything that was had this feeling of permanence. My parents and other adults were fixtures in my life. It all felt robust and unchangeable. But as time went on, grandparents passed away, trends came and went, seasons changed and I began to learn that nothing is forever. Even concrete will degrade in strength and eventually, it will crumble away into dust. Institutions are no different, they tend to have a lifecycle, at the very least require constant maintenance, and all these systems we rely upon to create order in our world are surprisingly fragile.

The New York City skyline has a robustness of appearance. It is built off of the bedrock, the skyscrapers seemingly carved out of a single piece of polished granite. This is by design. The architects and engineers who built these monolithic-looking structures do want them to feel secure and safe. And, for the most part, or under typical conditions, it is true—they are reliable.

However, they’re not indestructible.

The Word Trade Centers, while massive and certainly marvels of engineering, under that shiny metal and glass veneer, were as flimsy as a stack of cards. What made them great also created unique vulnerabilities. Unlike the Empire State Building, a grid of I-beams and tapers in towards the top, the enormous twins had a center trunk section with long clear spanning trusses that were supported by the outer ‘skin’ of the buildings. This had given them a large and unobstructed office space. This was practical, but in retrospect became a fatal flaw in their design.

The WTC design was innovative, unusually lightweight construction with wide open floor spaces supported by trusses.

The impact of the airliners removed some of the structure. No, this was not enough to cause a collapse, yet this was enough to add strain and reduce the load-carrying capacity of the buildings. The towers, despite getting hit by aircraft larger than the 124-ton Boeing 707, had exceeded expectations and absorbed the impact. It was only after fires raged, out of control, that the heat had reduced the tensile strength of the steel enough that the floor trusses would deflect and could no longer hold the upper floors—at which point the top of the buildings began to fall into the lower—smashing one floor at a time until nothing but a cloud of dust and pile of rubble remained.

The popular meme “Jet fuel can’t melt steel” is clearly ignorant of the reality that you do not need to turn steel into liquid before it will fail. An inferno of jet fuel mixed with office materials is more than enough to weaken a structure to the breaking point. There is no need to explain this as controlled demolition or building 7, where there was damage to the structure, fires burning on ten floors, and the sprinkler systems disabled due to water main breaks.

Still, many Americans have a huge problem accepting that these symbols of our strength could be taken down by a handful of zealots with box cutters. It makes us feel insecure. We want it to be more. And thus it must be some kind of massive concerted effort, with an enormous cover-up, right?

This is, ultimately, a form of denial.

Most Americans know that manufacturing jobs have been continually outsourced. But many do not fully comprehend the economic reasons why the US has gone from the nation that won WW2 with industrial power to the current situation nor how much they have benefitted. It is the status of the US Dollar as the world reserve currency and the Petrodollar arrangement that give US consumers the edge. Basically, in order to buy their oil from Saudi Arabia, other countries around the world needed to get their hands on our money and for this reason would sell us goods they produced at a bargain price.

The manufacturing backbone no longer exists.

The “new world order” George HW Bush hypothesized was never to be. Bin Laden had answered and won on multiple fronts. He caused us to question our own American identity, whether our leaders actually represent our good, and if their endless wars truly benefit us—which they don’t. More importantly, he penetrated the illusion of permanence and strength that kept us blindly pulling the weight of empire for our masters. Even 9/11 truthers, in their rejection of the official narrative, are part of this new anxiety undermining the tower of world dominance built in the post-WW2 era.

After two more wars where only the defense contractors and their political proxies came out as victors, after bailouts for the “too big too fail” and current institutional protection of the hedge fund billionaires against retail ‘Ape’ insurgents, more are waking up. How the elites and political establishment gang up on populists, like Donald Trump or Bernie Sanders—brazenly rigging the DNC primary in 2015 and the Big Tech election interference this past cycle—has damaged faith in the democratic process. And, lastly, having endured the Covid lockdowns, more question the notion of us being exceptionally free people.

Even if enough Americans remain under the spell and continue to support the collapsing regime, the rest of the world (at least beyond Western Europe and Australia) is not fooled by our propaganda. After decades of BS and bullying, like those WMDs never found, many are rejecting the monopolar order and ready to work on plan B. China, India, Middle-Eastern and African nations do not want to be perpetually subject to US economic threats and warfare. And, after the Ukrainian sanctions, they’re taking steps to protect their own sovereignty against this imperial aggression. BRICS is here and the supremacy of the Petrodollar, which is what has enabled the half-century US reign, is being challenged.

The pillars upon which the US economic might was built are now shaking and yet nobody seems to be focused on shoring up this foundation. The tower sways, but hubris blinds those who could prevent the collapse.

From confidence to doubt…

Bin Laden knew his 9/11 attacks would lead to massive overreach. He understood that the arrogance of our leaders would lead to a flailing angry response. No, the attacks were not enough to bring it all down but they did put the cracks in the base of this order and the future is no longer as certain as it was prior to that moment of horror and disbelief—when a bustling city and the most powerful country in the world was brought to a standstill.

Those feelings of horror and helplessness and disbelief remain, like those abyss-like holes in the ground where the towers once stood. We have all seen the writing on the wall. The party may have continued, on the surface, but something has fundamentally changed underneath it all, the ground has shifted—as has our perception of our own untouchable position in the world.

History is not an end, the new world order is starting to look as frail as those geriatrics who rule us afraid to die and desperately cling to their power.

The juggernaut of the US-led world order, which had briefly appeared to be an impenetrable fortress, is now unraveling and all it took is a little push.

Do you really want a life without conflict?

Thinking, as I’m sipping my coffee at Dunkin, a Saturday habit, we build civilization as part of the urge to reduce variables and the effort of living. The thought started during my pre-waking slumber: We work, build shelters and store resources, create complex networks, to try to decrease unpredictability and the end result is that I don’t need to worry about my source of caffeine.

This orderly environment we create is ideal for raising children. It is a nest. Or at least at some levels. Where we, like birds, weave a structure out of chaos in order to keep our offspring safe from predators and ourselves protected a world that can be unkind to the unprepared. Squirrels scurry around, in the fall, gathering up things to keep for food over the hard winter months. Our own species, likewise, is as instinctively forward thinking and creates systems to ease the strain.

The human endeavor, towards these ends of producing stability and abundance, has been so successful that many can go their entire lives not appreciating it.

We’re so well-off, in the developed world, that our impoverished are obese rather than hungry and many now think that healthcare (a service provided by others) is a right. we live in such unprecedented luxury and ease, even the poor can afford a lifestyle that many ancient kings would envy and yet feel so entitled to everything that we will shoot up the McDonald’s drive thru if we can’t get our bacon:

Evidently, being in civilization doesn’t make someone civilized.

Anyhow, other than entitlement and lack of appreciation, another product of civilization is boredom and fat. In the absence of wars we created sport and without hard work, to keep from physical deterioration, we go to the gym. It is truly bizarre, when you think about it, that we go out and seek the very anxieties that our ancestors built civilization to escape. We are adrenaline junkies, doing intentionally dangerous things for the fix, we want to have unpredictable outcomes.

All of this really does make everything about our existence a weird paradox. As soon we achieve a little bit of stability and peace we become restless. That’s what convinces me that we are as much nature, made for the world we are in, as we are not. That feeling that we somehow do not belong in this place with death and sorrow is what has motivated our progress. It is less about our own being otherworldly and more what has enabled us to survive this universe that would kill us the moment we grew complacent.

This, incidentally, is the one thing that many people do not grasp about entropy, we tend to see decay and deterioration as being only a bad thing. I mean, we fight it. If someone walks into the house with muddy boots it is upsetting and spurs action. But, without this tendency to disorder, without this repeated need to clean up on aisle five, would we even have a reason to live? As much as we hate disorder, it is this continual struggle against it that gives us meaning and purpose.

The Shocking Truth About Diversity and Strength

Composite materials are stronger than their component parts. When two or more materials of unique strengths are blended together the result can be a composite that has the ideal characteristics of all the parts. This is what makes concrete and rebar a formidable pair. The combination gives both the compressive strength of concrete and also the tensile strength of the steel. It is inarguable that diversity is not strength or at least when it comes to material science.

However, as all topics go, it does not end there. Boeing, like all builders of commercial airliners, has two primary goals (besides safety) in their designs: Lightweight and reducing costs. One of their innovations is the use of carbon fiber in their aircraft. The problem with carbon fiber is that it reacts with or is corrosive of aluminum. For this reason, they must use a separating layer of expensive titanium as the solution to this bad material pairing. It works in this case, but diversity is also a source of conflict and potential systemic failure.

Diversity: Good and Bad

First, the good. We’re all unique. I go to work with a group of people with slightly different abilities and backgrounds from my own. It is what allows us to specialize and thus be stronger as a team than if we tried to do it all by ourselves. I would rather Patty do the bookwork, the members of our sales team talk to our customers and stick to my role of designing trusses. This is where diversity is a great strength.

Furthermore, men and women are different, both physically and otherwise, which can make them an ideal pair. Only a male and female can produce offspring together. We can argue over the particulars or against sexist generalities, but there is something special about any diversity of characteristics that can lead to the creation of new life. It is ideal in other ways as well. One of this special partnership can provide and protect from outside threats, the other can nurture their children and organize their shared space. It can be the best of human arrangements.

Unfortunately, with the good comes the bad, and what can be the best of things can also be the worst. The gender wars, that endless battle for control between abusive men and their feminist counterparts, is how the most wonderful kind of diversity can go very badly and be anything but strength. Diversity is, therefore, also a source of deep division and strife. What can make a strong composite can also lead to corrosive interactions and unwanted drama. Sparks flying.

Homogeneity is our strength?

While the West, the ‘woke’ Anglosphere in particular, is obsessed with “diversity and inclusion” as the highest order of priority, not all in the world do.

Japan, for example, is very happy to remain Japanese and feels no need to host foreign refugees on their own ancestral lands. This homogeneity of their culture and ethnicity does seem to help to reduce the friction in their society. Crime is extremely low. During the disaster at Fukushima older engineers were willing to sacrifice themselves for sake of their younger kinfolk. And there’s just a sort of harmony that exists with everyone pulling in basically the same direction.

This has never really been the case in the United States There were wars between the natives and new arrivals. With every new immigrant wave arriving there was mistrust and contempt between these groups. It is what led to sentiments like this:

Only a damn fool can expect the people of one tradition to feel at ease when their country is flooded with hordes of foreigners who — whether equal, superior, or inferior biologically — are so antipodal in physical, emotional, and intellectual makeup that harmonious coalescence is virtually impossible. Such an immigration is death to all endurable existence and pollution and decay to all art and culture. To permit or encourage it is suicide.
H.P. Lovecraft

It is notable that Lovecraft, the famed atheist writer of existential horror, had his strong opinions about various races, including Italians and Jews. His racism, xenophobia, disgust over the intermixing of people or fear of contamination, has the markings of an obsessive-compulsive disorder. And yet he was not entirely wrong about the “melting pot” being chaotic and creating a place that’s lacking social cohesion.

It is no big surprise that after a decades long assault on policing and national symbols that, with the ‘woke’ takeover, military and law enforcement recruitment is falling off a cliff. Nobody, in their right mind, would ever sacrifice themselves for a country or cause that doesn’t represent them and their own values. Participation requires buying into the common vision and is not possible when there’s competition for that spot. Nobody wants to die for those who lack appreciation or are completely divorced from what matters to them.

Unequally Yoked: Understanding Biblical Warnings

There is a sort of distain, even amongst professing Christians, towards the Old Testament law. The various cleansing rituals, dietary prohibitions and other restrictions can seem to be quiet arbitrary our modern ears. Why does it matter if we mix several materials in our clothing, plant diverse seeds or crossbreed different animals?

First, I believe this was more about teaching a concept of Holiness or being set apart for good.

Second, it is a completely practical point about our greater potential when being of the same mind or spirit:

Can two walk together, except they be agreed?
(Amos 3:3 KJV)

Third, this principal didn’t end in the Old Testament:

Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
(2 Corinthians 6:14‭-‬16 KJV)

The whole point of Old Testament law was to reinforce the things that St Paul explains above, we cannot expect good results when we are paired with those who are pulling in a completely different direction. It’s simply reality, we need to have a boundary between ourselves and those who have nothing in common and want to destroy us.

Is Diversity Our Strength?

It depends.

I don’t think complete segregation of sexes or making all people androgynous is a good solution to gender difference. Nor should we erase subcultures in the name of unity either. We want diversity, we want people of different strengths. But there needs to be some kind of common identity or bonding agent, otherwise we end up with a bunch of competing identities and a fight for the supreme position. It takes a powerful adhesive to make composites work and this can mean a national identity that overrides all others.

Christ: The Ultimate Bonding Agent

All composite materials rely on some kind of bonding agent to work. And early Christians, likewise, were also trying to bridge some vast cultural differences. In fact, much of the struggle, in the early church, came down to the difference between the Jewish born and Gentile coverts. Should those newly converted, from non-Jewish background, be required to follow same requirements of faith or be exempted?

There was plenty of compromise, a new vision (Acts 10:28) and joint identity formed in Christ:

Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called “uncircumcised” by those who call themselves “the circumcision” (which is done in the body by human hands)— remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. He came and preached peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.
(Ephesians 2:11‭-‬18 NIV)

It is Christ who eliminates old social barriers:

So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.
(Galatians 3:26‭-‬29 NIV)

So, diversity, if bonded in Christian love, can be an amazing strength. But, when lacking any kind of joint identity it is a horror show, it is corrosive. It leads to a bloody and violent competition for supremacy between rival groups. Without Christ it becomes man versus woman, black versus white, class versus class, and there is no strength in this kind of arrangement. The ‘strength’ of diversity is only possible when all, despite differences, are seeking after the exact same overall goal.

It is okay to have our own separate identities, even to celebrate our own cultural or ethnic heritage. But, when are being black or white, male or female, rich or poor, puts us at enmity with each other, when it is corrosive and causes is to react with hostility to those of a different perspective, then it must be brought under the Lordship of Jesus Christ and repented of rather than to be a source of pride. This is the higher order priority: “Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification.” (Romans 14:19 NIV) And, “over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.” (Colossians 3:14 NIV)

Words and Wars — Why Musk Terrifies the Establishment

Some of us are old enough to remember the playground taunt, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me.” That denial of the power of words, of course, was merely to disempower a bully and quite a bit more effective than crying for mommy in most circumstances.

In this age of online censorship and newly invented categories of offense, it is difficult to even claim that words have absolutely no impact on us. Being called a “racist” or “domestic terrorist” does matter, it can come with serious social consequences and be used as a pretext for punishment of political opponents. No laughing matter.

We are governed by words. If we see a red sign emblazoned with the letters S-T-O-P, we tend to comply (at least partially) without much thought. And, whether you want to comply or not, because of written laws, you’ll end up giving the IRS a significant portion of your income. Words can and do hurt your wallet, they limit opportunity and shape outcomes.

We are steered, employed by others to their own ends, by use of description, framing and narratives. For example, whether a deadly conflict is described as being a “military intervention” (Yemen) or as an “invasion” and “aggression” (Ukraine) has little to do with substantive difference and everything to do with how propagandists wish us to perceive the event.

Context provided, what is or is not reported, changes the moral equation.

Those who control social media platforms understand the power of words. They know that awareness is induced through language and that narrative matters. This is why they have taken such interest in curtailing speech and the dissemination of information. Even if corrupted by partisanship, many of them likely see this as their responsibility or a moral obligation.

Unfortunately, regardless of intent, these self-appointed gatekeepers failed. The same people who routinely “fact-check” hyperbole and satire, even banned people for suspecting the lab origin of the pandemic, have yet to identify the Russian collision narrative as false. The most egregious act was Twitter using bogus reasons to suspend the account of the New York Post for their sharing the Biden laptop bombshell on the eve of the 2020 Presidential vote. Talk about election interference!

Elon Musk’s announcement of his ownership of a significant stake in Twitter and then subsequent buyout of the far-left’s favorite social media has shook up the political establishment. Elizabeth Warren, a powerful US Senator, who leveraged a fiction about her Native American heritage to attain her own privileged position, somehow worth $67 million herself, had this to say:

This deal is dangerous for our democracy. Billionaires like Elon Musk play by a different set of rules than everyone else, accumulating power for their own gain. We need a wealth tax and strong rules to hold Big Tech accountable.
— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) April 25, 2022

Strange how now she speaks up about potential “dangerous to democracy,” but not when Big Tech was using the pretense of their “community standards” to ban content creators, including a former President, for challenging their ideological agenda and narratives. Sure, they always could conjure their excuses or hide behind “Twitter is a private business, if you don’t like it start your own internet,” disingenuously while suing individuals who defied their demands, but now the truth comes out, suddenly it is all about democracy:

Credentialism much? I guess we should trust the privileged elites who trust the corporate system instead?

To those of us who have faced algorithmic demotion and punitive measures for our wrong-think, doing things like posting the actual flag of Ukraine’s Azov battalion or a quote of Hitler praising censorship intended as ironic, there is appreciation for Musk as a free speech advocate. To those who use the word “democracy” as an excuse to trample rights, this represents an enormous threat to the ability to control narrative.

For those of us who have been paying close attention and involved, we know why Yahoo News, along with other far-leftist run online publishers, have shutdown their comment sections. Sure, they may say this was to prevent misinformation, but the reality is that there would often be factual rebuttals or additional context that would undermine the narrative of the article. It was always about control, not protection.

The war of words is as important as that which involves tanks, bombs and guns. It was propaganda and censorship, as much as physical means, that enabled Nazis to put Jews in camps. This is why Russo-phobia, the demonization and cancelation of a whole ethinic group, over things the the US-led imperial left, is so troubling. President Obama was not accused of war crimes for a brutal AC-130 attack on an Afghan hospital, despite the dozens of verified casualties, why is that?

It is, of course, how the story is presented that makes all of the difference. If a writer wants a leader to appear incompetent they might use the words like “bungled” as the description. If they wish to spin it as positive they’ll say “setbacks” and dwell on framing the cause as righteous instead. Those who want the public to support one side of the Ukrainian conflict will downplay or even completely ignore important context, like NATO expansion, the violent overthrow of Ukraine’s democratically elected government in 2014, and merciless shelling of the Donbass region.

And this is why Musk promising to restore freedom of speech on Twitter is such a big deal and especially to the current power brokers. The military-industrial complex, which owns the corporate media and many of our politicians, stands to lose billions in revenue if they can’t convince the gullible masses that Vladimir Putin is literally Hitler for leading a US-style “regime change” effort in his own neighborhood.

I mean, how will US political families, like the quid pro quo Biden’s, continue to make their millions in kickbacks (Burisma/Hunter scandal) if Ukrainian’s energy is back under Russian control again?

This is why they’ll fight tooth and nail to keep the presentation of the story as one-sided as possible. They do not want us to hear the facts that may cause questions. They only want us to have their prepacked stawman “don’t say gay” version of their enemies, presented by the late-night funnyman for ridicule, rather than allow a truly informed debate.

Unlike many, the ignorant who accept narratives at face value, the elites with government and corporate power understand that the world is run by ideas. It is how wars are won.

Fear Is Contagious. Fear Is Deadlier Than Coronavirus.

Spanish flu of 1918 was unusual, amongst modern influenza outbreaks, because it killed young and otherwise healthy people. One of the possible reasons for this is an immune reaction called “cytokine storm” in which overreaction of a bodily system leads to a cascade of other failures and eventually to death. I’ll let my friends who are medical professionals correct me on the details, but that is the basic idea and sufficient explanation to set the stage for this blog post.

The Herd Reacts…

The psychology of human behavior, in particularly how it pertains to people in groups, is a fascinating study. We are social creatures and because of this our own response to anything can be easily influenced by the reaction of group. If one person or several, who are considered credible by the group, start to do something new, it won’t be very long before there are many others copying them. That is how fads and fashions are born, that is why religious people conform, we want to share in the credibility of the credible by doing what they are doing. We do this unconsciously, like the contagious yawn, and can help explain what happened last week.

All of the cancelations of the past few days may very well come down to the actions of one man. Rudy Gobert, days before becoming the first NBA athlete to positive for the Covid-19 virus, decided it would be funny to deliberately touch all the mics and recording devices in a news conference. This led to the NBA suspending their seasons and, like Mrs O’Leary’s cow kicking over the lantern starting the Great Chicago Fire in 1871, one man’s caviler attitude could very well have triggered the response of the NBA and the long list of other cancelations that soon followed.

It goes like this: The NBA canceled because 1) a few of their players tested positive, 2) they realized they were no longer in control of the situation, and 3) they could possibly be held liable if the death of someone’s grandpa could be traced back to one of their sporting events. So, in the name of public safety and all things good and right, they decided to approach this unknown risk by abruptly ending their season. This, in turn, very likely influenced other leagues to follow suit for fear of their own inaction, despite knowledge of risk, becoming a heyday for trial lawyers everywhere or simply a public relations disaster.

The more leagues and events that cancelled, the more others felt pressured to do the same. Sure, this was something rationally justified, the idea of “flattening the curve” or slowing the spread of a disease by “social distancing” soon became common parlance, and yet the spread of this idea to start canceling events seems also to be very much like the simultaneous run on toilet paper. Anxiety disorder is something I know a little about and, while I’ve never been tempted to hoard toilet paper, it certainly has gotten in the way of my better judgement.

So is the reaction to Covid-19 wholly rational or was it post hoc rationalization and basically a collective panic attack?

Nothing To Fear But Fear Itself…

I have a friend who was an Air Force medic during the First Gulf War. He told me an anecdote you’ll never hear reported in the news, a behavior that doesn’t make any rational sense and yet is something he encountered a few times in the lead up to combat in Iraq.

Apparently some of the young soldiers were so keyed up and anxious that they couldn’t take the pressure of the wait anymore, they would find a place where they had a little privacy (the porta-potties as I recall) and take their own life using the firearm issued to them.

It makes absolutely no sense. Why would someone, facing the danger of death, be so anxious that they would actually kill themselves?

In times of crisis people want to do something, anything, to lose that feeling of powerlessness. That is probably the reason why many people have recently started to stock up on things that really would not help them. That is why young soldiers, concerned about losing their life, took their own life rather than continue to wait in fear. Fear often leads to an irrational response. And our most educated and elite, given responsibility to make decisions, are not immune to this kind of irrational “do something” impulse either. Our leaders are capable of panic as much as any of us.

It reminds me of the story of Easy Company, told in the series “Band of Brothers,” where the Company Commander, 1st Lieutenant Norman S. Dike Jr. (or “Foxhole Norman”), was portrayed as being frozen by combat and unable to make a decision. He had obviously been talented enough to rise up through the ranks and become an officer, but apparently he lacked the calm and collectedness to be an effective leader outside of a controlled predictable environment. He had to be replaced by a more common and practical man, with the right instincts to get the job done:

During the assault on Foy, Dike had ordered a platoon to go on a flanking mission around the rear of the town. During their charge, he ordered them to take cover. His subordinates informed him they were going to get killed because they were sitting ducks. At the same time, Captain Richard Winters, former commander of Easy Company and the Battalion executive officer, tried radioing him to tell him the same thing. Having no idea how to control the situation, Dike froze. Carwood Lipton, at that time the company’s first sergeant, later put it: “He fell apart.” He was relieved during fighting at Foy by First Lieutenant Ronald Speirs under orders from Captain Winters, then moved on to become an aide to Maxwell Taylor, 101st Airborne Division.”
Military Wiki, Norman Dike

Could it be those whom have power in our institutions are men (and women) of similar caliber to Dike? Smart, capable of working their way up through the established system, and yet lacking the courage necessary to lead society through uncharted waters? Some of them freeze in fear, others overreact in their anxieties, while others (seeing the bigger picture) are more more able to make good decisions and navigate the stressful circumstances of the present moment. Running the NBA or being at the top of a government agency does not mean that a person is qualified to manage a crisis and in some cases those in those positions are probably going to make matters worse rather than better.

Self-sabatoge, Fear-based Overreaction and Titanic Failures…

It is really hard to know, actually, in a politically polarized time, when many are willing to cut off their nose to spite their face, what is a real crisis and what is merely an opportunity to try to undermine a political opponent. In fact, there are some in this country who seem quite willing to destroy the economy in a desperate bid to get their power back and a few who even seemed to cheer the plunge in the markets. When some see personal benefit in feeding hysteria and panic, it is hard to know who too trust when clearly not everyone is on the same team anymore.

But that said, I would tend to see the fear as being real and the reaction a sincere effort to prevent the worst case scenario from happening. It was easy, as Covid-19, ravaged China, to deny the severity of the situation. For one, the Chinese government is not the most trustworthy source of information (add to the that they had every reason to minimize the outbreak as not to scare away investment dollars) and, two, it is very easy to dimiss China as a them rather one of us. The real wakeup call was Italy, a country clearly on par with our own in terms of medicine, and how quickly a few isolated cases suddenly exploded. And, unlike China, where the government kept a tight lid on information, the truth was allowed to escape.

What has happened since I see as being similar to when a driver dozes off, wakes up while crossing the rumble strips, and reactively jerks the wheel. Their immediate reaction may spare them a trip into the trees, but it could also be an over-reaction that takes them head-on into an incoming tractor trailer. It could be too little too late. There are those right now who call the idea of “flattening the curve” a “deadly delusion” an that only complete containment strategy will make a difference. But then I begin to wonder has the opportunity to save those most vulnerable been missed a month or so ago when we failed to close our borders when it was clear that China was dealing with something unprecedented in our own times?

They say had the HMS Titanic ran straight into the iceberg, rather than barely grazed it, some would’ve died from the violent collision and yet the ship would likely haved stayed afloat. It is also strong possibility that they could have avoided a collision with the iceberg altogether if they had only used the rudder rather than try to reverse the engines. The Titanic, unlike many ships of the period, had two outer propellers run off piston engines and one in the center that was powered by a turbine. The outer propellers could be reversed quickly, the inner could not, and the result of their attempt to reverse being turbulence over the rudder which made the magnificent ship unresponsive.

Sometimes I wonder if it is too late to spare the lives that will be lost if we slam headlong into Covid-19 and let be what will be. Yes, people will die. But people will die regardless and crippling the economy may only add to the death count. Don’t get me wrong, I believe cancelling unnecessary activities and avoiding large group gatherings is a precaution worth taking, as is practicing good hygiene, washing hands, wearing masks and self-quarantine. However, I would also argue that wrecking the economy will only make matters far worse and must also be avoided at all necessary costs.

In my own mind there is a vast space between paralyzing fear or irrational over-reaction and blinding arrogance. We can and should be getting prepared, but with deliberate calm. We are at war, the strength of our enemy is not fully known, we must not recklessly expose our vulnerable flanks, we dare never freeze in fear. It would be wise to buy some time, to allow better countermeasures to be deployed and that does mean social distancing, less travel, more cleanliness, and really what should be common sense.

What Is Coming?

Despite our best effort, war is coming. We can expect that in the coming weeks that case numbers will jump dramatically and, not only that, but ICU beds will begin to fill at an alarming rate. We could see abandoned shopping centers and malls converted into makeshift hospitals. We will probably see some “wartime medicine” or triage, where those most likely to survive are given access to treatment over those who have only a slim chance are basically left to die, so snap out of your dismissive stupor and conspiratorial denial now or you will not be prepared for the battle of the coming days.

That is the truth.

We are emotional beings, not wholly rational.

We make poor decisions, both collectively and individually, that can turn a dire circumstance into an absolute disaster.

If you are seeing this only in terms of politics, who gets blamed or who benefits, you are the problem more than the virus. If you have filled your cart with toilet paper because suddenly you feel vulnerable and don’t know what to do, stop thinking only about yourself and stop feeding into the anxieties of others. It is time to buckle down, put aside partisan differences, selfish ambitions, and act together as one nation again.

In the end, remember, like the case of many who caught Spanish flu and died because of their strong (yet unhelpful) response, overreaction can be more deadly than the actual threat. We cannot bring the economy to a grinding halt out of fear, instead we must thread the needle with a prudent and properly measured reaction. There is no point in stopping the virus by killing the patient. We should pray that our leaders are given extraordinarily wisdom and calm for this unprecedented event.

God bless!

On Cynicism, Courage and the Real War On Christmas

A week ago someone had called my grandpa and identified himself as being my younger brother. He needed to be bailed out after some kind of traffic law infraction. My grandpa, not one quick to give vast sums of money over a phone call, quizzed his ‘grandson’ and inquired as to why he did not ask his parents first. The spoof caller answered that he wasn’t getting with his parents, at which point it was obviously a scam and my grandpa hung up.

The other day my grandpa called to inform me that someone had just called claiming to be me, his eldest grandson. This time he hung up without hearing another word.

On the same day my grandpa told me about this I had a plea for help, on social media, from an orphanage in Pakistan. Their profile pictures featured a bunch of dear children and those images momentarily tugged at my heartstrings. However, there was no way to verify who they really were. So, I tried to kindly explain my brotherly assistance was required elsewhere. When continued to repeat the request for a Christmas donation, like a broken record, I blocked them. I’ll probably be slower to accept a similar friend request in the future to avoid the need to try to reason with someone only interested in my wallet.

The communication era has brought the world together in ways unimaginable a century or two ago. And, with that development, predatory hoards from around the world can now invade our personal space at any given moment. The marauders no longer need to travel in longboats over dangerous seas, they simply pick up the phone and pretend to be your grandchildren.

This is frustrating for me. There are so many legitimate needs, including that of my family in the Philippines, and these are the real victims of the scammers and schemers. Those who exploit our kindness and generosity do a great disservice to the people around the world who work hard, experience hardship, and could use a little help. It is easy to become callous and uncaring under the deluge of requests. But we must have the courage to care even when there’s a chance of being exploited.

What is the real war on Christmas?

Political activists are constantly claiming a war here or a war there. The left claims that not providing women with free stuff constitutes a “war on women” and the right, not to be left out of the grievance culture fun, whines about the words “Merry Christmas” not being on Starbucks cups—who can forget Joshua Feuerstein’s coffee cup fury and the backlash?

But the real war on Christmas has little if anything to do with corporate marketing and tit-for-tat politics.

Christmas is not about compelling others to use a particular greeting or ensuring that religious displays are allowed in public spaces.

Christmas is a celebration, for the Christian faithful, of the most incredible gift ever given, that being the incarnation of God’s logos in the person of Jesus Christ and the opportunity for our divine adoption. This miraculous birth, to a virgin mother, represents a new hope for humanity and a reason to change ourselves. The true Christmas spirit is our being filled with this same spirit of love and giving of life for the good of others that Jesus embodied.

Turning Christmas into the latest battleground of a broader culture war is to entirely miss the point. Giving Starbucks hell isn’t going to further the message of glad tidings and joy, that’s for certain, and is not likely to win any hearts or minds either. Pettiness is never going to convince a skeptic to consider the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It is a distraction at best.

The commercialization of the holiday also takes away from the true reason for the season. The birth of our Lord and Savior wasn’t really intended to inspire stampedes of shoppers hoping to wrestle a few dollars of savings from their neighbors. But Christmas has become a marketing boon for retailers and they (along with the rest of our culture) push people to spend money they don’t have for things they don’t need—things manufactured using underpaid foreign workers while the bulk of the profits enriching a few globalist elites. It is a scheme nearly as exploitative as the telephone scammers, but completely legal.

However, those two things (culture wars and commercialization) are mere symptoms of the bigger disease and the one thing that can undermine the Christmas spirit in us—the soul-eating disease called cynicism. If Christmas has a true enemy in this world it is cynicism. Cynicism is a cancerous attitude. It is natural (albeit unhealthy and inhumane) response to a world full of self-interested people and corrupt institutions. The cynical person is one who has seen behind the curtain, who may have been taken advantage of once or twice and is now too overtaken by their skepticism to truly love their neighbors.

It is often the disillusioned idealist who becomes a bitter, critical, and faithless or cynical. Cynicism is, in that sense, a product of those who exploit trust for financial gain, a result of fatigue of being hit from all angles, and a retreat to a position of disengagement. But it is not dispassionate, as it often claims to be with a shrug, nor is this retreat from personal involvement a moral high ground. No, in reality, cynicism is an excuse for being uncaring, cold-hearted and self-centered.

The clever trick of the cynic is to be uncharitable while presenting oneself as being someone concerned about morality or morally upright for being able to identify the evil intentions of others. But the reality is that cynic is a hypocrite merely using the abuses of others as a cover for their own true self-interested indifference. They might cite scams as a reason why not to care and yet will always have another excuse waiting in the wings if that one isn’t applicable. They are simply unwilling to give of themselves.

Truly the cynic is a coward. They are too cowardly to do good in the face of evil, to be vulnerable and take a chance of being exploited. They are also too cowardly, fearing the social cost of revealing the full truth of their real underlying lack of concern for others, to make a full commitment to the evil they truly envy and yet claim to despise. The irony of the cynic is that they are as selfish and as much a part of the problem as the people that they claim has caused their cynical condition.

Caring requires courage and courage requires commitment…

It takes courage to have life experience and not be cynical. I’ve held back on giving to many charitable causes because some of them did seem more like self-interested scams. There is definitely a case for good stewardship, we should be “wise as serpents” because there are “wolves” (Matthew 10:16) who would devour us and lay waste to our hard-earned savings. It does the world no good to empower criminals or encouraging laziness in those who could learn to help themselves.

However, the dividing line between a person desperately in need of love and one merely taking advantage of the generosity of others is razor-thin. In fact, in many cases, there are overlapping motives in those asking for help, some genuine and others corrupt, and knowing how to respond requires a great deal of wisdom and discernment.

For example, a single mother, raised by the system, may indeed be inclined to take advantage of the charity offered and especially the half-hearted kind that comes out of religious obligation rather than a full commitment to love. They might simply intend to get what they can get before moving on. In those cases, it is easy to dismiss such a person, to conclude that they are unwilling to make the changes necessary to be free of their current circumstance, wash our hands, and move on.

Unfortunately, while there is a time to let people learn from their mistakes, the salvation of those who are mired in generational poverty (or otherwise unable to help themselves) often requires an investment that is beyond reasonable. In other words, it takes an investment of faith rather than of mere religious obligation. It requires the courage and commitment to look beyond the risk of being exploited and to unconditionally love another person before they have proven themselves worthy of our help. Faith means being the hands and feet of Jesus.

Had God waited for us to be worthy of his love, he would not have sent his son, we would still be waiting for a Savior and be hopelessly lost in our sin forever. The true Christmas story is God showing us how to love by becoming personally involved and being completely willing to sacrifice himself as an example for us to follow:

Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. (Philippians 2:3-7)

Christianity and cynicism are completely at odds with one another. They might be similar in that both see the chance of being taken advantage of and exploited, but are completely different in how they respond to that chance. The cynical person lives based on fear and uses their knowledge of the risk as a reason to do nothing for those in need. The Christian, by contrast, makes a commitment to do good despite the strong possibility they will suffer great loss for their efforts.

A Christian must go to war with their cynicism, they must help that diseased man heaped at their doorstep, they must aid the broken traveler discarded along the path they trod and must make an unreasonable commitment to overcome evil with good. That is how soldiers win wars, they understand the risk and are still willing to sacrifice themselves for the cause. It takes courage to overcome our fears, to give ourselves as a sacrifice for the good of others, and live out the true meaning of Christmas.

Be courageous and don’t let the scammers and schemers turn your Christmas spirit into cynicism!

Finding the True Legacy of American Slavery

As a child, because of my father’s work in construction, my family would travel. My mother, someone as inquisitive and interested in learning as I am, would take us children to the various historic sites and museums near the areas we visited. A significant part of our time in the South was spent surveying Civil War battlefields, exploring plantation homes built in the Antebellum era, and pondering it all from the perspective of a proud Yankee.

At the time the devastation and destruction of the war were justified by the righteousness of the victors. Slavery was an affront to the notion that “all men are created equal” and thus this institution of human ownership remains an indelible stain on that founding ideal of this nation. This perspective made Abraham Lincoln a heroic figure, it made the Union soldiers honorable men, the North was morally superior to the South and that was that.

However, that was actually simplistic.

First, many of the casualties of war are innocent, the wrongs of our enemies not justify our own, and the reasons for a conflict are far more complex than the victor’s narrative, Second, slavery had been an institution since the beginning of human history and a subject of debate for the founders who ultimately decided that the constitutional federation of independent states against the British colonial power required some compromise. Third, the aggression of the North may have resulted in emancipation for slaves in the South, yet it did not improve the conditions of those treated like rented mules in Northern industries and mines nor did come without a cost. Furthermore, both sides in the Civil War relied on conscripts (poor men forced to risk life and limb to further the agenda of the powerful) and in the North disenfranchised whites (mostly Irish immigrants) rioted in New York City against the draft and taking their anger out on black city residents.

The human and economic costs of the Civil War were staggering. It is estimated that 620,000 men died in combat or from disease related to the horrid conditions and that’s not to mention the many more ‘casualties’ who returned physically or psychologically maimed. The direct impact was full 1.5 times the GDP of the time, for comparison, the 2017 GDP distributed per capita (19,485,400/325.7×1.5) is $89,739.33, and the indirect costs were far far greater. The total economic price tag of the conflict is conservatively estimated to be 10,360 million in 1860 dollars or an incomprehensible 315 billion dollars in today’s money and at a time when the US population (and GDP) was a fraction of today’s. Every man, woman, and child in the South lost the equivalent of $11,456 during the war and continued to lose long after the war due to the destruction—the vast majority of them never owned a slave.

Poor whites in America, especially in the South, had the double whammy (or maybe triple whammy?) of being forced to fight on behalf of the rich, of working for very little compensation themselves and then still being called privileged by their actually privileged counterparts. It wasn’t the moralizing Northern abolitionists who freed the slaves nor the Southern slave owners who felt the greatest pain of the brutal conflict. The people who paid the real price were the working class, they were the ones who lost the most in the war, a war over an institution no fault of their own, and are now held as responsible as the slave owners themselves. It is a path to resentment. People who feel powerless often take their feelings out on those with less power than they do. Sadly black Americans have historically been the recipients of this frustration while the true beneficiaries of their exploitation are never held accountable.

Slavery, at its peak, only accounted for a fraction of the nation’s GDP:

In the 1850s, the zenith of the cotton economy, it came to between 1 and 1.5 percent of the nation’s GDP, not a trivial sum. By this period, however, the United States was already the second-largest economy in the world and was investing every year between 13 and 15 percent of GDP in new capital. Even if the entire “slave surplus” were saved (which it wasn’t, because there were mansions to build and ball gowns to buy), it would have made a respectable contribution to growth, but it just wasn’t large enough to be the basis of an empire. (“Was America Built By Slaves?“)

As the quote above suggests, most of that gain likely went to the slave owners themselves, spent on their lavish lifestyles then, on those plantation mansions that still exist in the South, and was not invested back into the economy in general. A significant portion of that wealth evaporated as a result of the war and emancipation. The value of a slave went from being $12,500 to $205,000 (in 2016 dollars) to effectively zero. So, in other words, if the 1860 census were correct that there were 3,953,761 slaves and the average price was around $800 in their dollars (or around $140,000 in our own) then slave owners lost around 554 billion dollars. Slaves, on the other hand, gained something priceless, that being their own freedom, and yet the cost of slavery to black Americans is truly incalculable.

The Incalculable Cost of Slavery…

The cost of slavery to black Americans is incalculable and not in terms of economic impact. It is incalculable because of the lasting social consequences that can’t be assigned a number value. The suffering of black Americans did not end with the Civil War, they faced the lingering resentment of their white neighbors, all forms of discrimination, intimidation tactics and terrorism. Even with Constitutional amendments prohibiting slavery, recognizing their citizenship and granting voting rights, conditions did not improve dramatically for black Americans in the “Jim Crow” South. It took a further effort in the 1960s, the civil rights movement, to finally see some of these Constitutional rights fully realized and not before Dr. Martin Luther King Jr was murdered by an assassin’s bullet.

But, perhaps worse than the lynchings and segregation, one time events that can be adjudicated or something that can be addressed through legislation, is the immeasurable impact on the dignity of those who know that their ancestors were once treated as property and sub-human. I can’t really imagine how it would feel to have my own race being counted as 3/5ths of a person in my own country’s founding documents. There is no way to compensate for that psychologically and especially not when the widespread mistreatment was still in full force a mere generation ago. In such a context, it would be hard not to see any misfortune or measurable difference in outcome as somehow related to prior generations being robbed of their dignity and right to self-determination.

However, making matters astronomically worse is the fact that even many of those claiming to want to help often treat black people as their lessor and do more harm than good in their efforts to restore. A prime example of this is the so-called “War on Poverty” and how since then black marriage rates have plummeted and out-of-wedlock births skyrocketed. First, intact families are a greater predictor of future success than race. Second, making a person dependent on government handouts does nothing to restore their human dignity and, in fact, keeps them trapped. The welfare state has more or less enslaved the black community (and many others) to politicians who stoke fear of losing ‘benefits’ as a means to gain votes and maintain their own power.

Affirmative action programs do nothing to help confidence. No, if anything, they only further reinforce feelings of inferiority and, worse, feeds a notion that black accomplishments may deserve an asterisk. I can recall very well the conversation I had with a young man in the Midwest whom I confronted over his racism. He made no apologies, he embraced the description and then blamed his own lack of success in college on his not being given the same opportunities as minorities. Whether true in his case or not, it takes an extra dose of grace for a poor white person to not feel slighted and very easy to take out the frustration on the beneficiaries. I’ve had to fight this myself as someone who never finished college for mostly for financial reasons.

A few years ago I had hope, with the election of Barack Obama, that this would heal some of the wounds, bolster feelings of self-worth, and help us turn the page as a nation. Sadly, it has seemed to do the opposite. My opposition to increased government spending, as a lifelong conservative who doesn’t see more government control as the solution to every problem, was characterized in terms of race as was any opposition to his policies. Rather than be seized upon a moment of reconciliation, Obama’s race was used as political leverage, as a means to ostracized political opponents and advance a leftist policy agenda. The specter of racism is used to control, both to frighten some voters and also to smear others.

A decade ago I had believed that we were on our way to colorblind society, one like that Dr. King had envisioned where people would be judged by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin. Today I’m not even sure that is possible, the current political establishment benefits too much from identity politics and tribalism to allow that kind of society to form. It is hard not to feel cynical in a time when white vs black narratives dominate the headlines. And, while I believe this too shall pass, that the current racial tensions are an aftershock rather than a repeat of the past, there is also the reality that slavery is an unpayable debt.

The Unpayable Debt…

Some have suggested an idea of paying reparations to the descendants of slaves to right this historic wrong and would finally, once and for all, reconcile the injustice. There are those who have gone as far as to suggest a number, between $5.9 and 14 trillion dollars, as being suitable compensation or at least as a “meaningful” symbolic gesture and something that could improve race relations.

Those selling the idea of reparations say is that this is similar to payments made by Germany to those who suffered through the Holocaust at the hands of the Nazis.

However, those promoting the idea fail to mention the significant differences. The first difference being there are actual Holocaust survivors still alive today to receive the compensation for their loss, but there is not one former slave or slave owner still alive. A second big difference is that the abuses against the Jews in Germany were perpetrated directly by the government itself, whereas slavery was a private institution that existed long before the United States was a nation and was eventually ended by the government and at a very great cost. Hitler’s Germany didn’t stop themselves, the government stole directly from people and sent millions to slave labor camps or gas chambers to be killed—it was literal genocide.

But the bigger problem with reparations is who pays, who gets paid and how much?

It is not justice to make one generation pay for the sins of another. There are many in the United States who did not benefit from slave ownership. My own ancestors, for instance, did not own any slaves and the own possible way they might have benefitted is in slightly cheaper cotton. However, I didn’t receive any inheritance of money nor of cotton clothes from my grandparents. In other words, my savings is my own, from my own work, do I owe anyone (besides my cousin who just helped install flooring in my rental and the bank) nor do I feel any guilt for anything I’ve done. So why should the innocent be forced to pay any more than another person should be forced to work? Do two wrongs make a right? It would only be right to target those who actually did benefit directly from slavery and the complexities of that would be enormous. Would we go after the descendants of European and African slave traders as well?

And then there is the matter of determining who gets paid what. The reparations advocates come up with their dollar figure based on a calculation of hours worked, wages at the time, and interest that would be accrued. But that’s not how things really work. Again, the wages of my grandfathers and great-grandfathers were spent in their generation, dispersed into the economy, and there is nothing left for me. The reality is that the modern ancestors of slaves benefit from the economy in the same way that we all do, thus paying them with interest would not make any sense and especially when that money would be taken from their innocent fellow citizens. Then there’s the reality that not all American black people are ancestors of slaves, some of them are recent immigrants from Africa, some have mixed ancestry and others may actually be the ancestors of black slave owners. Yes, there were slave-owning black people in the American South—should their ancestors pay or be paid?

So, what do we do, start compensating based in DNA tests, as in, “You’re 1/5th black and thus entitled to X…”?

Do we prorate based on how much someone benefited from affirmative action?

Will multi-millionaires, those who obviously have done well, be paid?

Do we deduct welfare payments, etc?

Grading everyone based on their ancestors reinforces all the wrong ideas. It is measuring a person’s worth based on their ancestors rather than their own individual merits and exactly the thing we should be getting away from. Besides that, it is severely undervaluing the worth of a US citizenship, there are people fighting for the opportunity to be here, and our economy is much better here than it is in Africa. Yes, certainly a black person born into an urban environment may face unique difficulties. But then there are many immigrants who come here with nothing, who settle in the same neighborhoods and do advance. And where does it end, do we owe the followers of Joseph Smith for the systematic oppression of them and their religion? Do we owe the Republican party for the attacks against them by the KKK and lynchings of party members? It is just not a good direction to go, it is divisive, it will hurt the wrong people, and we are already deep in debt as a nation. Why should our grandchildren (black, white and other) pay interest to the Federal Reserve and other wealthy people for what is only a symbolic gesture and, if we are honest, won’t remove the stain of the past anyway?

The truth is that money won’t change anything as far as the past. Sure, I’m guessing many who would receive reparations like the idea, who wouldn’t take a windfall? But the reality is that all the compensation in the world cannot erase the legacy of slavery and all the wrong people would end up paying the price. A professional sports contract doesn’t make anyone forget injustice, many lottery winners often end up as poor as they were before, and money can’t be used to solve the problems created by money, to begin with. There are times when a financial settlement is the answer, when both parties directly involved (the aggrieved and the accused) are properly adjudicated. But billing the current generation for the sins of the past, especially without due process, is theft no better than slavery at worse and mere revenge at best.

The true legacy of slavery is that some are owed a debt that cannot be paid.

Wake Up, the Matrix isn’t Real!

A matrix, according to Merriam Webster, is “something within or from which something else originates, develops, or takes form.” And we do live in a matrix where our ideas about race, history, advantage and disadvantage matter more than the actual facts. In other words, the matrix is the way we individually or collectively interpret the facts and use them to form our ideas. Our thought matrix, our assumptions based on our own interpretation of facts, plays a significant role in our outcomes. Overcoming the mental processes that keep us bound is key to success in life.

The other week I was driving to a job site and notice some nice new houses with their well-manicured lawns, spiffy two-car garages, and paved drives. I was overcome momentarily with a tinge of envy, a little regret, and mostly befuddlement at how some people could afford such things. The question immediately came to mind, “What did I do wrong?” I thought of my life, my disadvantages, the opportunities missed, and all those things that held me back from reaching my full potential. However, before I went too far along in that thought process, another question countered the first, “What did I do right?” My mind went first to all the thing I did right, but then to all my advantages compared to most people in the world and the things I did not choose.

Did I do anything right, say compared to that Haitian man I saw in Port Au Prince hauling a car body on his back or a woman born in Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, etc?

Our mental construct, our prejudices, and preconceived ideas, a product of our culture and choices, can make a real difference in our outcomes. Sure, positive thinking cannot change the circumstances of where we are born, a good attitude does not mean that there will be fewer obstacles to our success in life, yet why not make the best of the opportunity we are given and live in gratitude for what we do have rather than envy of others or frustration because of what we lack?

Part of the problem is that there is a system of control, it helps to create our expectations, it feeds our insecurities and can keep us bound. The real systemic oppression is the idea that politics (or more money in our hands and power over others) is the answer to our problems. Money can’t fix what it created, money itself binds us to the system and the things that money buys rarely deliver the happiness that we think they will. Again, look into lottery winners, many people end up as unhappy as they were before their winnings and some worse off. So why do we measure success in terms of things that will not and cannot make us happy?

What we really need to do is reorient ourselves. We must reject the unhelpful categories and classifications that keep us bound and change the way we think. Grievance culture, tribal score keeping and trying to rank people by their outward appearance is a backward-facing, small-minded and, frankly, racist orientation. There is no group guilt for slavery any more than there is for inner-city crime, we need to stop seeing people as white, black, orange or whatever, building our own identities around those superficial things, and aim for something greater—aim for the future that we want, yet hasn’t fully arrived, where all people are judged by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin.

It Is Time to Think and Act Differently…

If I had my own life to do over I may have dithered less (convinced that higher education was the key to success in life because of what my teachers told me) and started driving truck earlier. It was my own pride (and anxieties) that kept me from taking the better options available to me and I suspect there are many who, like me, prevent their own success because of their aim. And I’m not at all saying that we should sell ourselves short or settle for less than our abilities can afford us. However, many do set themselves up for failure because they keep waiting for the big break, the breakthrough when everything they dream of finally comes to them and refuse to take full advantage of the actual opportunities they have.

Another thing I would do differently is stop worrying that other people had it in for me and believing that I was helpless when the reality was that I was unwilling to make the right sacrifices. Part of my difficulty in life was due to my refusal to act differently or accept that my own behavior was part of the problem. Sure, there is something to be said for authenticity and being true to ourselves, but sometimes overcoming requires us to act differently and accept what is truly reality over our own individual construct. To find success in the religious context where I was born I would need to accept their rules and my fighting with that reality, my “kicking against the pricks” or resisting the flow rather than harnessing it, had some undesirable consequences.

Cutting to the chase, we have agency and we do not. There are well-worn paths to success with risks worth taking, call them cultural conventions, and then there are the low-probability high-risk paths that lead many to ruin. For example, finding a profession like teaching, law enforcement, construction or accounting (as opposed to seeking to be a career actor, model, musician or professional athlete) is more likely to produce desirable results for most people. Feeding our insecurities, dwelling on slights (real or perceived), demanding others conform to our wishes or that they respect us for who we are, expecting too much, is a path to long-term disappointment.

Overcoming the matrix means we need to stop seeing things in black and white terms. Sure, things like “black culture” or “white privilege” do exist in some form, at very least as a construct in our minds, but they really are only terms that obscure a far more complex picture and keep us trapped in the problem rather than working towards the solution. The reality is not as simple as the narratives pushed by academics and advocacy groups. There is no one group with all the advantages nor another with all the disadvantages. There is a reason why the suicide rates for middle-aged white people have skyrocketed while black rates have declined and are considerably lower—something (like connections and community) that might be missed in the commonly touted measures of success?

Recently I read the story of a naval aviator, an officer name Thomas J Hudner Jr, who was awarded a Medal of Honor for his actions in the Korean War. His act? He intentionally crash-landed his Corsair to protect and attempt to rescue a comrade, Ensign Jesse L. Brown, whose airplane had been hit by ground fire and was behind enemy lines. Brown, who happened to be the first black naval aviator, did not survive despite the efforts of Hudner, however, what does survive is an example of brotherly love that transcends artificial racial divides and presents a reality worth building upon. That is the legacy that, if built upon, will free us all from the sins of the past.

Loving dangerously, that is my idea of real success in life.

It is also neat, in these hyper-partisan times, to see George Bush Jr and Michelle Obama share some moments of common humanity together and continue this friendly exchange even at his father’s funeral. That is the symbolism that matters, that is the positive interaction we should aim for and the kind that can make a real difference in the world. If we love all people rather than prefer only those who look or act like us and orient ourselves to the hope of a better future rather than cling to our past and present suffering, we may well have a chance to build a better identity for ourselves as a nation. We may not be able to choose our inheritance, but we can work to create a better legacy for the next generation.

We, like Bush and Obama, have far too much in common to be at odds with each other.

Those who have faced hardship past or present should be heard and forgiven of their current insecurities. Those who have been indifferent to the suffering of others, out of ignorance or hardness of heart, should also be forgiven. And those two groups are all of us and have nothing to do with race. We are all victims, enslaved to a past that we didn’t create for ourselves, and all guilty of perpetuating the legacy to some degree. We can’t know what a person has been through by how they look on the outside and therefore we should love all people as we wish to be loved rather than by what we think they deserve. It is time to be courageously human, committed to true Christian love, rather than tribal, fearful and small.

Rudolf Diesel: Thoughts about Idealism, Despair, Progress, Politics and Hope

Diesel powers the world economy. I never considered the extent to which that is true until watching a documentary (click here to view it) about this type of internal combustion engine. It is named after the inventor, a French-German mechanical engineer, Rudolf Diesel, and is the reason why global trade is possible to the extent it is.

Early Diesel design, circa 1897

In considering the story of Diesel, his brilliant invention and the results, I could not help but see the pattern all too common with innovators. Diesel’s life turned tragic, he was found floating in the North Sea, dead of an apparent suicide, and likely a result of his despair over the unintended consequences of his own design.

According to biographical accounts, Diesel was a utopian idealist who had hopes that his invention would be a catalyst for social change, free the common man and break corporate monopolies. Unfortunately, while a revolution for transportation, Diesel power did not achieve the lofty social vision.

Worse, the Diesel engine found use as a part in an efficient killing machine, the German U-boat, and this no doubt grieved the pacifist inventor.

Here are some observations…

#1) What is intended for good can often be used for evil.

Diesel had never intended his invention be used as a means of terrorizing North Atlantic shipping lanes. And, likewise, many scientists and inventors had regrets related to their greatest contribution to the world.

German U-boat, the original stealth weapon

There are lists from K-cups to A-bombs online and many others. For example, Henry Ford seemed to dislike the vast social changes and consumerist mindset made possible by his manufacturing revolution that helped automobiles become a fixture of American life. Even this media, the internet, once thought to be the beginnings of an information age, has become a cesspool of pornography and ill-founded claims.

I worry about this as a blogger. Once my thoughts are out there they cannot be contained again. Will someone pick up my words and run with them in a direction I never intended? It is a potential outcome that could scare a sensitive soul into silence and is at least a reason for me to be prayerful in what I post here.

I believe there are many people who do not thoroughly think through the potential unintended consequences of the ideas they promote. There are many government programs and social movements intended for good that might actually be creating more problems than the one that they were intended to solve.

Which takes me to a second point…

#2) Yesterday’s revolution is today’s loathed source of inequality and evil.

It is ironic that the invention that did actually outcompete coal for market supremacy is now enemy #1 for many. The internal combustion engine won in the marketplace because it was by far the cheapest most efficient means to power transportation and still remains.

Given there are no steam powered cars, tractors, trains and ships anymore, it is clear that internal combustion is the best bang for the buck and remains to be rivaled. Diesel powered locomotives and ocean going container ships are extremely powerful while being very economical.

109,000-horsepower Wärtsilä-Sulzer RTA96-C

Diesel power still outperforms hybrid technology—A loaded Diesel powered class 8 truck is more efficient pound for pound than a Prius.

Think about it: It takes one gallon of fuel to move an 80,000lb truck five to seven miles. A 2016 Prius, by comparison, carries a weight of around 4000lbs can go anywhere from 50 to 58 miles on a gallon of fuel. It may seem the Toyota is greener until you consider that it is moving twenty times less weight. Twenty Prius cars combined together, after dividing their individual consumption by twenty, would consume 2.5 to 2.9 gallons of fuel. Now, obviously, combining Diesel and hybrid technology on the scale of class 8 truck would undoubtedly yield even greater results if fuel economy were the only concern, but the point remains that Diesel power is extremely efficient and effective—and only more so the larger the application.

So what’s the problem?

Well, the current popular perception is that the petroleum industry “big oil” is the enemy and conspires to hold back technology that would dramatically increase efficiency. Worse than that, we are told that petroleum power is a source of global climate change and a threat to the global ecology. Poor Diesel would be driven even further into despair if half this is true. We fight over oil.

#3) Progressive aims of our time are at odds with each other or self-contradictory.

Globalism, higher standard of living for more people and environmentalist ‘green’ movements are at odds with each other. Pushing one direction will almost invariably come at the cost of the others.

Progressive politicians may tout an idea of a ‘green economy’ as a jobs creator, but the reality has been that wind and solar energy can only remain competitive through heavy use of government subsidies. Beyond that, even with the help, domestic ‘green’ manufacturing is unsustainable against foreign competition. At best we will merely replace jobs lost by the heavy regulations placed on fossil fuels and raise costs of living across the board.

Furthermore, it was the progressive policies of the past century that have created the current conditions. Government policies like the Rural Electrification Act, the Interstate highway system and trade agreements have actually moved us away from a more sustainable less polluting lifestyle. Our cheap and easy movement from place to place has harmed community and local markets.

Rural Electrification Act propaganda poster.

It is hard to know how the current landscape would look had the progressives of yesterday had not literally paved the way for suburban sprawl, the trucking industry (that currently employs me) and driven us to embrace a coal powered grid. But I do suspect more of our food would be locally grown, more of our products locally produced and solar energy far more the norm in places utilities would be to costly to maintain unless mandated by law.

In final analysis things might not be as dismal as they seem.

It is easy to focus on the negative without considering the good. The means of today are likely as unsustainable as the means of yesterday and therefore the progress of the past century might not be the end of us after all. The only consistent reality in the past two centuries has been that markets constantly change.

Canal boats an all the infrastructure to support them were soon replaced by steam power and railroads. In Pennsylvania the lumber industry rose in prominence before a rapid decline after the states wooded mountains were reduced to stubble. The coal industry once put food on the table for boat loads of immigrants before cheap efficient oil and a multitude other factors conspired against it.

Bay State Mills, Lawrence, built 1845.

Manufacturing, from the once mighty water powered textile mills of the New England states to the formerly unstoppable domestic steel industry, has also migrated following cheaper labor and energy. Each time promoting deep consternation and fear. But so far the Luddites have yet to have the last laugh and a new balance is eventually found that usually benefits everyone.

Certainly the overconfidence and optimism about today’s new solution may become the big disappointment of tomorrow. Yet, do we really wish to go back to a time when a transatlantic voyage was only something a religious zealot or crazy Viking explorer would do? Would we really rather spend most of our time scrounging for just enough to eat as to avoid the possibility of mechanized warfare?

Nobody knows for certain why Diesel died...

However, what is certain is that his invention changed the world and provided a means for interstate commerce and global trade that never existed before. The pacifying effect of global trade, economic benefits of an expanded market place and inexpensive power are largely unappreciated. But we probably do have Diesel to thank for helping create the long peace and prosperity of our time.

Maersk, Triple-E design, Diesel powered, container ship

In an age of information overload, where we know about beheadings in the Middle East before the people the next town over would have heard a century ago, it is difficult for our finite minds to contextualize and easy to become overwhelmed. This, with an accompanying loss of faith, could be why middle-aged American white males are committing suicide (supposedly the most privileged in the world) and at an alarmingly increasing rate.

Diesel’s pessimism about the future in retrospect seems to have been premature and his nightmarish perception of reality overstated. In like manner many of our modern fears and despair inducing thoughts about the future could be negativity bias and nothing more. Every generation seems to believe that the world is falling apart and still here we are.

Whatever the case, ignore the fear-mongering propaganda of the punditry and politicians. Embrace temperance, a spiritual quality developed through faith, over mindless reaction and fearful impulse. Trust God to secure the future, we can only live one day at a time and never ever lose hope! If you are depressed about events in the world today, I invite you to see the higher perspective:

“Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” (2 Corinthians 4:16-18)

Perhaps the greater of two evils will be elected come November and drive the nation to complete ruin.

Who knows besides God?

We may all die tomorrow, we will all die eventually, our work blown away in the wind of time and forgotten. Everything comes to pass, nothing will remain as we know it today, but there is hope beyond all hope found in an eternal perspective. So look up, because the sun is still shining and the future remains bright!

Do you see the light and feel the warmth of hope eternal?

If not, my prayer is for the blind to see…

	Preston on The Beauty Of Orthodox Fa…
	Joel on The Beauty Of Orthodox Fa…
	Joel on The Beauty Of Orthodox Fa…
	Preston on The Beauty Of Orthodox Fa…
	Joel on The Beauty Of Orthodox Fa…

Irregular Ideation

"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen." Albert Einstein

war