Opus 2019-202: Book Review: The Case for Trump

I am reading the latest by Victor Davis Hanson, The Case for Trump.  He is trying to look at the reasons why Trump won the election and at the point I am now he is looking at his chances of success.  It is definitely not a white-wash.  The real Donald Trump emerges but it is written with an understanding that he is doing the things that those of us without power want to have done.

It is a good read but depressing.  It is depressing because he goes into great depth in what has been going on in what is being called the Deep State.  He has a long discourse on the large number of people who are deeply planted in the unelected arms of our government who think that they know what is best for the country and feel it is their responsibility to force the rest of us to conform.  They are committed to making the country go the “right” way regardless of how elections go.

Davis points out that this is a problem with government that goes back as far as history.  These elites tend to be almost impossible to dig out because they have not ethical restraints.  They consider themselves the true leaders.  They think of themselves as wise parent figures dealing with immature and spoiled children.  They think we need them.  This reminded me of how I have been living in a bubble of history. 

Where else in history has a normal person been able to live in the security, prosperity and comfort that we know today?  I was raised having no fear of the police or men in uniform.  They were there to serve and protect.  It said so right there on the door of their car.  And because the government was still relatively small, it worked.  When I was a child there was no concern about a SWAT team from the Department of Agriculture busting down my door and charging in with guns blazing only to find that they had the wrong address. 

I was raised in a miracle historically.  My concern is that my grandchildren will look at me and wonder what kind of fairy tales I am telling them.  We home schooled our children.  We lived in the awareness that the social workers and police might break into our house at any time.  It happened in the city in which we lived.  We did not register with the state.  You can’t get away with that any more because the government now requires every newborn to have a Social Security Number. 

The times are a changing.  What is not changing is my real confidence is in the God of history.  My prayer is that He will use Donald Trump as a tool to move this country back to what it once was and could be again.  I guess that is what MAGA means to me.

Hanson, Victor Davis.  The Case for Trump.  New York:  Basic Books, 2019.

homo unius libri

Opus 2019-201: Change Happens

It is funny how our perceptions of people change.

At first I was not sure I could vote for Donald Trump.  Then it came to doing it while holding my nose.  Then I was glad I did.  Now I believe he is the man of the hour.  I was wrong.  I admit it.

There are a group of people who used to be foundational in the conservative world.  I think of Bill Kristol, Rich Lowry and Peggy Noonan.   There was a time when they had something to say and fit into the world of traditional values and a belief in truth.  Now they are just Never-Trumper hacks.  We need to understand that it is not just the left that offers Fake News.  Consider the Drudge Report, Fox News and National Review.   

Actually it could be that what is changing is not my perception but the people.  Either way we need to always make sure our thinking caps are on and our memories are working.

homo unius libri

Opus 2019-200: Headlines: Or Not?

I heard about it from my wife.  I saw a meme poster on the internet.  My question was, “Is it true or satire?”  What I am questioning is that ABC used file footage from an air show in Kentucky and labeled it as the result of Trump pulling troops out of Syria.

I guess I will need to spend a few minutes checking....  Yes, it seems to have really happened.  Someone on some blog asked the question, “Don’t they have editors any more?”

I am to the point that I don’t believe anything that the MSM tells me and I am skeptical of what even conservative sites share.  What is funny is the number of times the satire of the Babylon Bee is posted as serious news.

The thing that worries me even more than the media is the general public.  They keep believing that the talking heads and DNC talking-point print media are actually sources of news.  How many times do they need to be lied to before they scratch their heads and wonder?  Have they forgotten the two years of hype on investigating Trump?  Have they forgotten the 30,000 e-mails?  Didn’t they see the clip of Joe Biden bragging about threatening the Ukraine government?  Don’t they remember..., well, I guess they don’t want to because that would mean they have to admit they have been suckers.

My main advice is stop getting sucked into the click bait.  Cut their revenues.  Don’t use their coupons.  Work on taking the country back.

homo unius libri

Opus 2019-199: Ode to Old: Fashion? What Fashion?

We need to be thankful for small blessings.  One that occurred to me recently was the trend in facial hair.  I am truly blessed that beards were not the thing when I was young enough to care.

Even now I cannot grow a beard.  I can do a decent goatee but a full beard would be an object of ridicule on me.  To have a beard you need a nice spread of hair.  Mine is more of a piebald pattern.

Shaving your head could be timely for me but I am too observant.  I have noticed that many of the men who shave their head to disguise their baldness forget that the pattern is still visible.  They still look bald but with shorter hair where it exists.  That doesn’t even consider the nooks and crannies that many of our heads have.

At this point fashion is of even less interest to me.  If you ever think I am looking cool because my pants are sagging and my underwear is showing it will not be a fashion statement but a mark of senility. 

homo unius libri

Opus 2019-198: Recognize the Mirage

I have led a sheltered life in many ways.  Although my father was blue collar and my mother never wore a pearl necklace around the house I had no trouble identifying with Leave It to Beaver.  The values were American and although it was not expressed, Christian.  In spite of that I have seen the other side.

My early years were spent in what would become a barrio and didn’t need to change much to qualify.  In high school and college I had a few friends who introduced me to the social atmosphere of drugs and alcohol.  I had enough inner character to not participate but I have distinct memories of a flop house in San Francisco with funny smoke floating in the air.  I was in Vietnam.  As a young adult I pastored a church in the inner city of Boston and not only got off at the train station but walked the streets and visited the homes.  As an adult I had a friend who would drag me to some local bars.  As a teacher I did extra hours home teaching and went into the housing projects to work with kids who could not make it to school.  There is a word for most of this with the exception of my childhood home:  Depressing.

I know what an environment based on hope and Jesus is like and how it contrasts to the typical life space of what we are labeling as snowflakes and millennials today.  I have been in the inner city homes of families in our church that radiated warmth and fellowship even though they had little money.  I have been at parties with the affluent that seemed to be desperate attempts to achieve the make believe world of happiness. 

When I see brief pictures in the news of violent mobs agitated by the America hating Communists on the left I recognize the atmosphere.  It is an echo of all the empty socializing I have seen over the years.  I don’t need to visit a room full of modern socialists like Antifa to know what it would be like.  In a word, depressing.  At least it would be depressing for anyone with a healthy outlook on life.

I worry about them.  I think they are a genuine danger to the peace of the world, let alone the United States.  Ultimately, in my heart, I pity them.  I feel the emptiness in their hearts and the desperate attempts they are making to fill it with so many false promises.  I have quoted it before but let me give you the words of Blaise Pascal in Pensees,  before I quoted from Project Gutenberg but I found another translation offered on Christianity Stack Exchange that was longer than the one I had marked.

“What else does this craving, and this helplessness, proclaim but that there was once in man a true happiness, of which all that now remains is the empty print and trace? This he tries in vain to fill with everything around him, seeking in things that are not there the help he cannot find in those that are, though none can help, since this infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object; in other words by God himself.”

Keep in mind that half of the battle for meaning is looking in the right place.  You usually can’t find pizza at the hardware store. 

Have a blessed day.

homo unius libri

Opus 2019-197: Worship Alternatives

Recently I was attending a Sunday worship service and got distracted.  It is not unusual for me to get distracted.  I remember in years past when the church had a great pianist.  I could get lost in the fifteen minutes of prelude that she played.  I would already be deep in worship when I realized that someone was standing in front of me trying to engage me in conversation.  It didn’t bother them that my eyes were closed and my head was moving in time with the music.  Since it was before formal worship began I was able to be polite.  During worship is different.  It is hard to concentrate with some of the entertainment offered.

The first thing I noticed was a young couple giving each other back rubs a few rows ahead of me.  They were married so it was fine to be touching each other but they were also young enough that I knew the young man was not paying any attention to the sermon.  I began to wonder what everyone else was doing that was distracting.

It is amazing how many people are just looking around.  I guess they are looking for friends or counting.  Maybe they are wondering if they are dressed in the proper style.  Some, as they look around, have some silent communication going on with friends.

Some were checking their phones.  I would like to think they had a Bible ap open but if they did they were reading very fast.  In this category would be ladies reorganizing their purse or cleaning out their pockets. 

It also amazes me the number of people who can’t make it an hour sitting in a cool room without taking frequent drinks from their water bottle.  And of course the same people seem to have weak bladders.

There are many people who could tell you how many lights there are in the sanctuary and where all the cracks are in the floor. 

Some ladies are redoing their hair or fixing their lipstick. 

And what is startling, there are actually some people listening to the sermon.  Maybe I need to get back to that.

homo unius libri

Opus 2019-196: The Danger of Open Borders

In the back of my mind is a quotation, “Turn about is fair play.”  Another version of this is “What’s good for the goose is good for the gander”.  A perversion of the golden rule would be “Do unto others as they have done unto you”.  Let’s suspend our awareness of such things as turning the other cheek and following the high road for a moment. 

My suggestion today is to accept the wishes of the Mexican government with the understanding that it works both ways.  This from Who Are We,

“Homeland governments encourage their people to leave their country and facilitate their doing so.  Immediately after his election, Vicente Fox announced his long-term goal of an open border with the free movement of people between Mexico and the United States.” page 280

Okay.  Let’s give them what they want.  Let’s have free movement across borders and all of the implications that Fox has no trouble with north of the old border.  I am thinking that it would not take all that long for Americans to sniff the wind and smell opportunity. 

Mexico is a country rich in natural resources with a large population of potential workers.  The things that have held them back have been a class oriented government and a culture that likes to take a nap in the afternoon.  If turned loose under the same lack of restraints northern bound Mexicans have, just think of all the wealth waiting to be realized by southern bound Yankees.  It would be a repeat of the 1840's when Americans moved into California, started loaning money to the large land owners and marrying their daughters.  Before you knew it they owned the state.

And if we allow the free markets to be free, think of the potential customers waiting to spend the new found wealth from all those jobs.  It reminds me of two shoe salesmen sent to a country where no one wore shoes.  One said it was a hopeless task because everyone went barefoot.  The next demanded a huge shipment and more help because everyone needed shoes. 

It would take some time to adjust but I think the American dream can be transferred and free enterprise can cause a revolution socially and politically.  And keep in mind that when the cartels started telling the Americans what to do we would pay the same attention to the gun laws that they do.  In time we would see the Americanization of what used to be Mexico.

Who knows, it might be that Mexico becomes Americanized rather than the United States becoming part of Mexico.

Huntington, Samuel P.  Who Are We?  New York:  Simon & Schuster, 2004.

homo unius libri