Lest you are feeling too comfortable and secure under current circumstances, I offer this from this morning’s reading from the autobiography by Lech Walesa:

When I was born at half past three on the morning of September 29, 1943, my father Boleslaw was in a Nazi concentration camp. His arrest had come without any waring for his family, when I was still in my mother Felicja’s womb. One dark night, policemen on horseback arrived, searched our home, found something incriminating, and took my father away with them. Later they came back to do another search and stole my mother’s watches and rings. My mother was in despair: they had taken her wedding ring. She told me later that she was sure it meant that her husband would never return, that her married life was over.

I like to announce them here first, I’m sentimental like that.

I’m delighted to announce that my 57^th audiobook narration, The Road to Concord: How Four Stolen Cannon Ignited the Revolutionary War by J. L. Bell, is now available on Audible.com.

It’s commonly taught that the Redcoats marched into Concord to capture John Hancock, John Adams, and other patriots, and this led to the battle that started the war. But General Gage’s orders to his troops didn’t say anything about capturing people on the mission. Some wise-ass Sons of Liberty had stolen four brass cannon right out from under his nose, from a guarded building, by cutting into a side door while the Brits were making noise outside during the changing of the guard. Gage was determined to get those cannon back before someone told London about the incident and embarrassed him.

My son Brian graduated from ITT Tech with an Electrical Engineering degree, for which he and I each assumed about $20K in student loans. I see on NRO this morning that this debt will be forgiven. Even though I have a reason to be pleased, I want to point out that this is not the same as other student debt.

Debt related to ITT Tech partakes of fraud.

It just so happens that I was commissioned to paint a picture of Jack Nicklaus for the Canterbury Golf Club in Beachwood, Ohio. It was there in 1973 that Nicklaus won the PGA Championship, giving him his record-setting 14th major title, surpassing Bobby Jones. He later went on to win four more major tournaments, a record that still stands.

The painting was based on a famous photo taken at the tournament. After finishing one of the holes, Nicklaus’ four-year-old son Gary (now a professional golfer), having been cajoled by his mischievous older brother Jack Jr., crawled under the security ropes and ran out onto the green to greet his father. Jack hoisted him into his arms and Cleveland Plain Dealer Newspaper photographer Ray Matjasic snapped a black and white photo.  Jack Nicklaus is quoted as saying that it is his favorite photo.

One of the things that makes mankind special is that we can – and do – take in data, make sense of it, assign it to categories in order to make it useful, and act accordingly. These categories, whether they are of the more scientific “mammal or not mammal?” variety or the softer stereotypes of, “Does that person pose an above-average risk to my person?” are not necessarily accurate – but they tend to be broadly helpful in going about our lives.

There are always dangers with categorization, as we know very well. Broad stereotypes lead to enhanced tribalism of all kinds (from xenophobia to racism). There is a reason the Torah tells us to have the same law for the stranger within our gates as for the citizen – we instinctively think otherwise.  Nevertheless, the same text tells us that we must categorize and make judgments. We must be responsible for our actions and choices because it is our choices that define who we are.

The increasingly ubiquitous and bitter partisanship in America recently seems very odd to me, partially because I really don’t understand the basic, central difference between leftists and conservatives.  In the Civil War, Democrats and Republicans had obvious and important things they disagreed on, such as slavery and human rights.  Things seem nearly as hostile now – surely we’re not arguing about trans-sexual bathrooms or something – there must be a big topic somewhere, that I’m missing.  I discussed this in the Land of Confusion podcast with Don and David a few weeks ago, and I’ve linked to that portion of the conversation below – it runs for about six minutes.  I hope you’ll listen to it to get my point, but I’ll try to summarize here.

Leftists tend to believe in strong, centralized power structures.  Democrats are the party of big government.  I know that Republican politicians don’t always do a great job opposing the Democrats on this point, but I think a large majority of Republican voters view their ideal government as much smaller and much more constrained than Democrat voters do.  President Obama said that government is the word we use to describe the things we all do together.  Leftists profess to believe in cooperative efforts within communities, and view conservatives as radical individualists who believe in an “every man for himself” society, and say that Republicans lack empathy for others.  I know these stereotypes are just that – stereotypes – but just for the sake of argument, follow along with me here.

What I find interesting about all this is that leftist societies, which ostensibly are based on cooperative effort and collectivism, tend to be violent, tribal societies that eventually tear themselves apart.  While other societies, which are based on respect for individual thought and individual rights, tend to be more peaceful and community-based.  Part of this, of course, is the Marxist tendency to coordinate groups of lower- and middle-class people, who use their superior numbers to take what they want from the wealthy few.  But I think there’s more to it than that.

I always ask, “why?” In this case, “why is the left so insanely crazy?” I tend to think that most things don’t have a single cause but maybe three or four causes that act independently of one another. And after all, knowing what causes are at the root of a major problem is necessary, I think, to even beginning to consider fixing the problem, by fixing them at their root causes.

And we’ve discussed generically two causes; and as for the third cause, we have attempted to psychoanalyze the loud or the proud or the violent left, and we’ve mentioned that the future may look empty and fruitless to the younger generations, due to lack of economic parity with their parents, and lack of opportunities, and digital social isolation. So far I think we have generally identified two, and now I think I’ve read about a third.

One hundred years ago the original IRA fought the most powerful empire in the world to a standstill in Ireland. This resulted in the UK granting a de facto independent state to Ireland’s political leaders, which became a republic within thirty years. Much of the original IRA were devout Mass-going Catholics. My ancestors among them.

I wonder had they seen into the far future the Ireland of today – secular degenerate and liberal with a vicious anti-Catholicism in the air – would they have bothered.

The US Conference of Catholic Bishops voted 168-55 to draft a document on “Eucharistic coherence.” A primary issue is whether or not pro-choice politicians can receive communion despite their fundamental disagreement with Rome. The debate gained steam with the election of President Biden, a Catholic who endorses abortion. Communicants are not supposed to participate in the Eucharist if they are in a state of sin and the Catholic Church considers this a serious sin.

Outrage spread across social media, blasting the bishops’ decision and demanding that all churches be taxed for “interfering with politics.” A few examples:

Dear @USCCB: I’m Catholic and I support:

-Contraception
-A woman’s right to choose
-Treatments for infertility
-The right for people to get a divorce
-The right of same sex marriage

Next time I go to Church, I dare you to deny me Communion. https://t.co/bUmiyJ8TtH

— Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) June 18, 2021

You’ve probably seen clips of the National Anthem performance at the recent Islander games. It’s extraordinary. The entire crowd, singing their hearts out. Absolutely brought tears to my eyes. You’ve got to watch it – they have the clip in this Fox News article. It’s beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. If you haven’t seen it, you really should.  It will make your whole week.

It’s also confusing. It’s an Islanders game. They play in New York City. Their stadium is less than 20 miles from JFK airport. I didn’t think you could find 10,000 patriots within 50 miles of that place. Democrats have spent the last few years trying to get sports teams to stop the National Anthem performances before games – too polarizing, too racist, too whatever. And here are 10,000 New Yorkers belting it out like they’re trying to make a point. And there were no hockey players kneeling on the ice.

Is New York City more conservative than I thought? Or are even New York liberals starting to fear the loss of their country? Or perhaps hockey fans are different than fans of other sports? Or perhaps there are a lot of northeastern Democrats who aren’t quite on board with the ‘destroy America’ platform of the Democrat party? Maybe, um – gosh, I don’t know – it’s surreal.