Conservative Conversation and Community
Politics is show business for ugly people. – Senator Fred Thompson. If anyone should know it is the late Fred Thompson, who was both during his lifetime. And we saw it illustrated this week in Washington. The impeachment is less a trial than a bunch of Hollywood wannabes behaving as if they were in some […]
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“O Lord… When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them? You have made them a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honor.” — Psalm 8:4-5
This is one of my favorite passages in all the Psalms. On the surface, it doesn’t seem like one that would support a pro-life message, but there is God’s love for His creation throughout. Yes, He must love His heavens, the immense burning stars and spheres that circle them and the moons that circle the planets, the comets with their flaming tails that streak across the solar systems, the harmony of their motions, the galaxies that they compose. How beautiful He must think. And here we are on this little planet in the corner of this immense universe, tucked away and subject to all the powerful and destructive forces, to all the corrosive and poisonous chemicals.
More“Much of the social history of the Western world, over the past three decades, has been a history of replacing what worked with what sounded good.” – Thomas Sowell
Sowell made this statement over a decade ago, so it should be updated to four decades, maybe five. And now the fruit of replacing what worked with what sounded good is ripe for harvest.
More“Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.” – Winston Churchill
Gee, ya think?
MoreMore“If peace cannot be maintained with honor, it is no longer peace.” – Lord John Russell
“The left doesn’t fight evil; it fights those who do.” – Dennis Prager
All the world’s a stage,And all the men and women merely players;They have their exits and their entrances,And one man in his time plays many parts. — As You Like It, Act II, Scene VII These lines are followed by a description of what Shakespeare calls the “seven ages” of life, from helpless infancy to the […]
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“A person who won’t read has no advantage over one who can’t read.” – Mark Twain
I may have some advantages. I have been a reader since first grade, nearly 60 years. Over that period I have been an engineer, a quality-assurance manager, a navigator, a technical writer, and an author. Reading has been the key to all of those careers. My ability to absorb information through the printed word has allowed me to succeed in each of those fields.
More“It’s discouraging to think how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit.” — Noël Coward
That is the reason American politics is so toxic today. You cannot tell the truth without shocking people, but no one thinks twice when a politician lies. They expect it. (How can you tell a politician is lying? His lips are moving.)
More“To say that the CIA and the KGB engage in similar practices is the equivalent of saying that the man who pushes an old lady into the path of a hurtling bus is not to be distinguished from the man who pushes an old lady out of the path of a hurtling bus: on the grounds that, after all, in both cases someone is pushing old ladies around.” – William F. Buckley
The left is very invested in false equivalences nowadays. We have seen example after example in the impeachment hearings over the last weeks. Context matters, and the motivations for actions also matter. As Buckley illustrates an action that is generally unacceptable – pushing old ladies around – may become justifiable in the context of a situation.
More“Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first, the lesson afterwards.” — Vernon Sanders
Boy, isn’t that true. I cannot think of all of the times I flunked a test I did not know I was taking. Fortunately, even though I paid in hide a few times, my misjudgments have never resulted in death, mine or others. Yet.
More“Humanity has unquestionably one really effective weapon—laughter. Power, money, persuasion, supplication, persecution—these can lift at a colossal humbug—push it a little—weaken it a little, century by century, but only laughter can blow it to rags and atoms at a blast. Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand.” — Mark Twain
Do we want to marginalize woke-scolds? Laugh at them. Make them figures of fun. Similarly for Progressives. (Indeed, Progressives realize this too. Alinsky’s fifth rule states “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.”)
More“The goal of our culture now is not the emancipation of the individual from the group, but the permanent definition of the individual by the group. We used to call this bigotry. Now we call it being woke.” – Andrew Sullivan
I know it is Andrew Sullivan. And he helped build the culture he is decrying in this quote. But a true statement is a true statement. If you are woke, you are a bigot. Even Andrew Sullivan realizes that.
MoreIf you want to know who actually has the power in our society and who is actually marginalized, ask which ideas get you sponsorships from Google and Pepsi and which get you fired. – Kevin Williamson
We saw some illustrations of that this week. Whistle-blowing is good if it hurts President Trump or any conservative, but it is bad if it is done against Progressive bastions (the mainstream media). If a Republican refuses to concede a close election this is an indication the Republicans cannot accept defeat. If a Democrat loses a close (or even not-so-close) election, refusal to concede is taking it to the man, or noble resistance. And heaven forbid a doula claim a man cannot give birth.
More“Four things have almost invariably followed the imposition of controls to keep prices below the level they would reach under supply and demand in a free market: (1) increased use of the product or service whose price is controlled, (2) Reduced supply of the same product or service, (3) quality deterioration, (4) black markets.” – Thomas Sowell
Did anyone notice California’s governor imposing statewide rent control on September 10? It was done to make housing more affordable and more available. It was sold as a means of fixing the homeless crisis. Of course, the cities that already had rent control are the cities with the greatest housing shortages and highest rents, but why let reality intrude on a great theory.
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St Vincent of Lerins (died around 450 AD) reflecting on development of tradition, in Commonitorium: What else has ever been attempted by the decrees of councils except this, that what before was believed in simplicity, this same truth should afterward be believed more earnestly; that what before was preached more indifferently, this same truth should […]
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MoreRoper: So now you’d give the Devil benefit of law!
More: Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
“I believe what really happens in history is this: the old man is always wrong; and the young people are always wrong about what is wrong with him. The practical form it takes is this: that, while the old man may stand by some stupid custom, the young man always attacks it with some theory that turns out to be equally stupid.”
– G.K. Chesterton, Illustrated London News, June 3, 1922
A constant in electoral politics is pitting the generations against each other. Many Boomers thought the Greatest Generation was too staid and traditional. Gen Xers found Boomers self-indulgent and profligate. Since Generation X is famously a forgotten generation, Millennials content themselves with bashing the Boomers as well.
More“The frustrating thing is that those who are attacking religion claim they are doing it in the name of tolerance, freedom, and openmindedness. Question: Isn’t the real truth that they are intolerant of religion? They refuse to tolerate its importance in our lives.”
– Ronald Reagan
We saw that illustrated by Robert “Beto” O’Rourke this last Thursday when he threatened to strip churches of tax-exempt status if they did not perform same-sex “marriages,” and the Democrats cheered. This bigoted, intolerant position was (of course) framed as a means of fighting bigotry and intolerance.
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So the other day I quoted Samuel Johnson. From that, I suppose it naturally follows that I should mine through the inextinguishable wisdom available from some of Ricochet’s favorite artists. Of course, I’m speaking of hip hop’s Public Enemy. Beware of the handWhen it’s coming from the LeftI aint trippin,’ just watch ya step.Can’t truss […]
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“JULY 4 [1776]. Today the Continental Congress openly declared the united provinces of North America to be free and independent states. This has caused some thoughtful and far-seeing melancholici to be down in the mouth; on the other hand, it has caused some sanguine and short-sighted persons to exult and shout with joy. It will appear in the end who has played the right tune. This remains as a comfort to believers: There is One who sits at the rudder, who has the plan of the whole before him, to whom all power in heaven and one earth is given, and who has never yet made a mistake in his government. He it is who neither sleeps nor slumbers and who has asked his people to pray, ‘Hallowed by thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done.'”
—Diary of a Colonial Clergyman, by Heinrich Melchior Mühlenberg
Though you may not know the name, Heinrich Melchior Mühlenberg is kind of a big deal among Lutherans. Born in Einbeck in Hanover in 1711, Mühlenberg was destined to become the patriarch of Lutheranism in North America. After studying at the University of Göttingen, he was ordained into the ministry in 1739, and accepted a call overseas to the German-speaking Lutherans in Pennsylvania in 1742.
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