Muddling Toward Maturity Blog

TRUMP HAS ALWAYS BEEN A WANNABE MUSSOLINI

To anyone who cares about the future of America, Charles C.W. Cooke's facts as recorded here (and below) need to be reckoned with.  Cooke:

Jay — you note that Donald Trump praised the massacre at Tiananmen Square and suggested that the USSR was too weak:

QUICK TAKES

    ** On Iraq - Historian Victor Davis Hanson on the Iraq war    The sort of serious analysis and reporting never seen found in mainstream writing (which incidentally throws Trump down from his pedestal)  UPDATE 3/15/16 -  Jay Nordinger's audio interview with Victor Davis Hanson

 

    ** Evangelical leaders on picking a Presidential nominee - Interesting "inside" stuff 

 

    ** Andrew C. McCarthy (the sharpest and most reliable mind around when it comes to Islam and terrorism) writes:  "Why Closing Gitmo is still a terrible idea."

 

    ** Charles Cooke - electing Trump would be "an unmitigated, unalloyed, potentially unsalvageable disaster"  Cooke says Trump must be stopped:  

 

The anti-Trump forces that still make up the majority of the Republican coalition must begin an expedited Manhattan Project, the sole aim of which is to bring down the front-runner piece by unpleasant piece. “If not us, who?” Ronald Reagan asked in the heat of the 1981 budget battle. “If not now, when?” Time to go nuclear, chaps.

JOHN LENNOX: WHY GOD? DO WE NEED GOD IN THE GOOD TIMES?

I love John Lennox for his clarity of thought, genial personality, and forthright evidence-based Christian faith.  The video below is not of the best quality, but if it proves too bothersome, one can just listen without watching.  I have blogged about Lennox before with other (and better quality) videos on various topics.

 

CELL PHONE ADDICTION

Update: 2/22/16 - "Digitally weary users switch to 'dumb' phones"

Original post:  Jacob Weisberg -  "We are hopelessly hooked"

Photograph by Eric Pickersgill from his series ‘Removed,’ in which he shows his subjects’ attachment to their cell phones and other handheld devices by asking them to ‘hold their stare and posture’ as he removes the devices from their hands and then takes their portrait.  -  Click through to see a series of photos!!

A way out:

   ** Jenna Wogenrich - "How I quit my smartphone addiction and really started living."   

 

SUPREME COURT JUSTICE ANTONIN SCALIA HAS PASSED AWAY

Update 2/23/16  - Farewell for Justice Scalia (long lines paying tribute and a moving funeral service)

Update 2/15/16 - Mona Charen reflects on Scalia's greatness.

Original post: What a shock and blow it was when I learned yesterday that Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia had passed away.  Three and a half years ago Peter Robinson interviewed Justice Scalia, an interview which offers a good window into Scalia's mind and judicial philosophy.

 

Rod Dreher cites Scalia's dissent in Obergfell, an opinion which illustrates his approach to the Constitution and democratic governance.

I write separately to call attention to this Court’s threat to American democracy. The substance of today’s decree is not of immense personal importance to me. The law can recognize as marriage whatever sexual attachments and living arrangements it wishes, and can accord them favorable civil consequences, from tax treatment to rights of inheritance.

Those civil consequences—and the public approval that conferring the name of marriage evidences—can perhaps have adverse social effects, but no more adverse than the effects of many other controversial laws. So it is not of special importance to me what the law says about marriage. It is of overwhelming importance, however, who it is that rules me. Today’s decree says that my Ruler, and the Ruler of 320 million Americans coast-to-coast, is a majority of the nine lawyers on the Supreme Court. The opinion in these cases is the furthest extension in fact— and the furthest extension one can even imagine—of the Court’s claimed power to create “liberties” that the Constitution and its Amendments neglect to mention. This practice of constitutional revision by an unelected committee of nine, always accompanied (as it is today) by extravagant praise of liberty, robs the People of the most important liberty they asserted in the Declaration of Independence and won in the Revolution of 1776:the freedom to govern themselves.

GOP PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE DISGRACEFUL

Last night's debate went out of control.  Trump acted like a town drunk, the audience high schoolish, and the moderators like hapless parents unable to control unruly children.  As far as analysis goes, David French offered as good a summary as I have seen (below).   [Photo above is of a moment of silent prayer on the passing of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.  Does Trump ever bow his head?]  French:

I’m done. Until the fundamental dynamic of the GOP primary race changes, I’m done with parsing debate winners and losers. So long as Donald Trump dominates an overly-large field of ambitious, fratricidal competitors, we will continue to see absurdities like the following:

 

1. Trump — the Republican front-runner, no less — borrowing language from MoveOn.org and Daily Kos to advance the absurd “Bush lied, people died” Iraq War narrative, attacking his fellow Republicans with far more fury than even Hillary Clinton can muster.

 

2. Trump repeatedly and loudly holding George Bush responsible for 9/11 and the fall of the World Trade Center.

 

3. An extended GOP defense of Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion, courtesy of Ohio’s extraordinarily sanctimonious John Kasich. Using talking points that Democrats would envy, he cloaked his embrace of an inferior, third-class government insurance program in the language of compassion and fiscal responsibility. In an ordinary race, Kasich would be long gone — shoved aside by genuine conservatives and an afterthought even in moderate New Hampshire.

 

4. Trump (yes, him again) actually extolling the virtues of Planned Parenthood on a GOP debate stage. As a businessman who built a “world-class company,” surely he understands that injecting hundreds of millions of dollars into a business helps the entire enterprise stay afloat. That’s what taxpayer subsidies for Planned Parenthood do for the nation’s largest abortion provider, even if taxpayer dollars don’t “directly” subsidize abortion.

ISLAM'S SWORD COMES FOR CHRISTIANS FROM U.S. TO UGANDA

The Western Press does a poor job keeping up with Muslim atrocities around the world.  Raymond Ibrahim reports on what happened in December.  

Islamic hostility for Christmas was on full display as documented here: on Christmas Day, Muslims in Bethlehem set a Christmas tree on fire and greeted the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem with a hail of stones;  Muslim “refugees” set fire to a public Christmas tree in Belgium; Muslim jihadis attacked churches during Christmas mass killing at least 16 in Nigeria; Muslim jihadis in the Philippines slaughtered 10 Christians on Christmas Eve to “make a statement”; three Muslim countries—Somalia, Tajikistan, and Brunei—formally  banned any Christmas celebrations; due to assassination attempts on pastors and death threats to Christians, churches skipped Christmas mass in Bangladesh and were on “high alert” in Indonesia, with 150,000 security personnel patrolling; in Iran, Christians celebrating Christmas in homes were arrested.   [ more . . . ]

QUICK TAKES

 

   ** New York Times:  "An Earthling's Guide to Black Holes"

   ** Rod Dreher links to major article - "How the Fight Over Transgender Kids Got a Leading Sex Researcher Fired."     Gender dysphoria clinic head gets canned because he is not politically correct enough and because of intellectual and moral cowardice of his superiors.  

   ** Caroline Glick - Israel's defenses in dire straits over Russian deployment of the S-400 and the projected purchase of the fatally flawed F-35.   Israeli air superiority now ended.

   ** Charles Murray - Explaining Trumpism: the white working class has legitimate reasons to be angry at the ruling class.  

   ** David French - Stop Using Israel's Example to Justify the Barbaric Practice of Drafting Women into Combat

WHAT DID OBAMA REALLY SAY AT THE MOSQUE?

Dennis Prager has provided us an invaluable service in reporting what Obama actually said at the Baltimore mosque.  The media gets an "F" for not reporting even 5% of what Prager comments on below.  Prager's article is MUST READING.  He writes:

If you seek to understand Barack Obama and his views, the best place to go is his speeches. But you have to read them in their entirety, not rely on hearing them or on the media's summary of them. When you do, you realize how often what Obama says is morally and intellectually confused and even untrue.

The most recent example was his speech last week at a mosque in Baltimore. In addition to reassuring Muslim Americans that they are as American as Americans of every other faith -- – a point that any president, Republican or Democrat, would and should make – President Obama spoke a lot of nonsense, some of it dangerous.

President Obama: "So let's start with this fact: For more than a thousand years, people have been drawn to Islam's message of peace. And the very word itself, Islam, comes from salam -- peace."

Why did Obama say this? Even Muslim websites acknowledge that "Islam" means "submission" [to Allah], that it comes from the Arabic root "aslama" meaning submission, and that "Islam" is in the command form of that verb.

That's why "Muslim" means "One who submits," not "One who is peaceful."

Obama: "Jefferson and John Adams had their own copies of the Quran."

The reason Jefferson had a copy of the Quran was to try to understand it in light of what the Muslim ambassador from Tripoli had told him and John Adams. When asked why Tripoli pirates were attacking American ships and enslaving Americans, the Muslim ambassador explained that Muslims are commanded to do so by the Quran: "It was written in their Quran that all nations which had not acknowledged the Prophet were sinners, whom it was the right and duty of the faithful to plunder and enslave; and that every mussulman [Muslim] who was slain in this warfare was sure to go to Paradise."

That's why Jefferson and Adams had Qurans.

Obama: "And how do we move forward together? ... It can't be just a burden on the Muslim community -- although the Muslim community has to play a role."

Most Americans would say that the American Muslim community has to play "the" role, not "a" role in preventing violent Islam from capturing the minds of American Muslims, and in helping authorities identify extremist Muslims.

RABIDLY ANTI-CHRISTIAN LEFT ATTACKS HEIDI CRUZ

Heidi Cruz, wife of GOP Presidential candidate Senator Ted Cruz, made statements today regarding the Judeo-Christian foundation of this country that rankled the militant secularists.

David French writes:

The scandal du jour, from the ignorant, anti-Christian sectors of the Left, comes courtesy of a brief excerpt of a radio interview with Heidi Cruz, Ted Cruz’s wife:

For those who don’t have 92 seconds to listen, here are the quotes that caused Ken Meyer at Mediaite to call Cruz’s statements a bizarre rant:

We are at a cultural crossroads in our country, and if we can be in this race to show this country the face of the God that we serve — this Christian God that we serve is the foundation of our country, our country was built on Judeo-Christian values, we are a nation of freedom of religion, but the God of Christianity is the God of freedom, of individual liberty, of choice and of consequence.

Jon Green, a regional field director for Barack Obama’s 2012 campaign, also found this excerpt offensive:

I think that’s something that this country really needs to be reminded of, is that Christians are loving people, are nonjudgmental people, but there is right and wrong, we have a country of law and order, there are consequences to actions and we must all live peaceably in our own faiths under the Constitution. And Ted is uniquely able to deliver on that combination of the law and religion.

Green comments:

Thomas Jefferson envisioned a wall of separation between Church and State. Ted Cruz envisions that wall being torn down entirely. He’s not judging, he just thinks people who disagree are wrong and bad.

In reality, Heidi Cruz’s comment represents a standard (and accurate) expression not just of Evangelical beliefs, but also of American history. Christians aspire to “show the face of God” in all that we do — by imitating as much as we can our Savior, Jesus Christ. We fail often, but we’re better for the effort. As for Cruz’s statement that our nation was built on “Judeo-Christian values,”

 

OBAMA ADMINISTRATION SCANDALS SEEN WITH AND WITHOUT BLINDFOLDS

Here is the assessment of the apparently bindfolded and spacewalking David Brooks, this morning:

The first and most important of these is basic integrity. The Obama administration has been remarkably scandal-free. Think of the way Iran-contra or the Lewinsky scandals swallowed years from Reagan and Clinton. We’ve had very little of that from Obama. He and his staff have generally behaved with basic rectitude.

To which Jim Geraghty responds:

“Remarkably scandal-free”? David Brooks works in the news business, right?

Fast and Furious. The IRS scandal. The $2 billion spent building Healthcare.gov. The Veterans Administration letting veterans die waiting for care. The Office of Personnel Management hacking. Lying about Bowe Berghdahl. “Companies like Solyndra are leading the way toward a brighter, more prosperous future.”

Jonathan Gruber’s declaration that Obamacare depended upon the “stupidity of American voter.”

The NSA and Edward Snowden.

The stimulus “was riddled with a massive labor scheme that harmed workers and cheated unsuspecting American taxpayers.”

Prostitution and incompetence in the U.S. Secret Service.​

QUICK TAKES

-- Wesley J. Smth - "Mainstreaming Animal Personhood"

 We should be alarmed at the vigor with which animal personhood is being promoted in professional journals in the august fields of law, politics, science, and bioethics. So what, you say? Let radicals bloviate. Animal personhood will never be adopted through democratic means.

That’s almost surely true, and animal rights activists know it. That is why they are seeking to attain their goal by court fiat.  [more...]

--  Gallup's 2015 poll: The most and the least religious States in the U.S.

                  Most religious (in order):  Mississippi,  Alabama, Utah, Louisiana, Tennessee,  Alabama, Georgia, So. Carolina, N. Carolina . . . 

                  Least religious (in order):  New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine, Massachusetts, Oregon, Washington, Hawaii, Rhode Island, New York . . .  [See full list and discussion]

  --  David French - "In Defense of Football" vs. George Will, "Superbowl's 60 Minutes of Damage"

BBC - WHAT LIFE WAS LIKE ON AN ENGLISH VICTORIAN FARM

I recently drew attention  to the BBC six-part production of tenant farmers living on a monastery farm in Tudor England, circa 1500.  Since then I have discovered that the BBC has also produced a 6-part series on Victorian Farm Life circa 1880, plus a 12-part series on Edwardian Farm life around 1901-1914. 

The Victorian Farm series "recreates everyday life on a small farm in Shropshire, using authentic replica equipment and clothing, original recipes and reconstructed building techniques."  The first of six episodes may be enjoyed below.  Wikipedia offers verbal synopses of all six episodes.  

 

Below you can enjoy the first of the 12-part Edwardian farm series as well.  Wikipedia helpfully offers synopses of these programs also.  The series was filmed at Morwellham Quay, an historic quay in Devon.

  

QUICK TAKES

  -  David Pryce-Jones - It Would Be Foolish for Britain to Remain in the EU 

  -  David French - It is Only Going to Get Worse -- Jonathan Haidt on the Crisis on Campus.  -  On Leftist domination in the university and plus the effects of raising "fragile kids".  Valuable also for introducing me to Heterodox Academy website.  

  -  Luca Volontè  - European Resistance to Cultural Suicide

                                - Europe, Multiculturalism, and Nihilism

MARCO RUBIO TALKS ABOUT HIS CHRISTIAN FAITH

From CBN News:

"Sen. Marco Rubio's passionate profession of faith before a meeting of Iowa pastors last Fall played a big role in his surprisingly strong showing in the Iowa Caucus Monday night."

As I have written previously, I personally support Ted Cruz, but I see much to praise and admire in Marco Rubio.  Rubio's response to a question in this video is utterly unique.  Watch the video and be amazed.   Rubio has a genuine gift of preaching.  (See also my earlier blog post on Rubio's response to an atheist who challenged him at a town meeting.)

  

CBN News reports further on Rubio's unexpectedly good showing in the Iowa caucus: 

Few expected Rubio would do so well, but he capitalized on a last-minute surge in the polls and stumped hard in the final days of the campaign.

Members of the Rubio team believe the groundswell began in November, kicked off by his stirring explanation of the Gospel and the influence of Jesus Christ in his life before dozens of Iowa pastors.

Chief Political Correspondent David Brody said a senior adviser to the Rubio campaign told him CBN's exclusive coverage of the pastors event was a "game-changer" for the campaign.

WHO IS TED CRUZ?

In order to form an opinion of Ted Cruz, one needs to discover as best one can his distinguishing characteristics both as a person and as a candidate.   

  -  Andrew McCarthy points out Cruz's uniqueness:   (my boldings)

The most significant aspect of this [Cruz's victory] is that Ted is a conservative running as a conservative – not in the modern mold of a Republican who thinks he can make big government work more efficiently, but in the Reaganite mold that sees government as the problem. . . .

More than any outsider, though, Senator Cruz is attempting to move the public to our principles – even if it means taking on ethanol in the den of ethanol – because those principles can improve the lives of all Americans, regardless of group identity. In a time when progressivism is failing us, spectacularly, in government, the economy, the international arena, and the culture, Ted is campaigning to defeat it, not to fix it.    [See Cruz's earnest conversation with an irate Iowa farmer - video]

 

   -  A journalist (Erica Greider) who met Ted Cruz before he ran for any public office and has followed him since, has listed and amplified The Top 10 Things You Need to Know About Ted Cruz.  Here is the list, but you have to read the article (insightful, and well worth reading) to get the meat on the bone.

   1) Ted Cruz is not a fire-breathing extremist.

   2) Cruz is also not a wild-eyed maniac.

   3) He has nerves of steel.

   4) Cruz is smarter than us.

   5) He may even be too smart for his own good.

   6) Cruz is very serious about strategy.

   7) Cruz is meticulous with his words.

   8) Cruz is a mainstream conservative from the Texas Republican establishment.

  9) Cruz is really into the Constitution.  (By high school he had memorized it.  His undergraduate 1992 thesis at Princeton, was about the historical and theoretical underpinnings of the Ninth and Tenth Amendments.)

 10) Cruz is in it to win.

   - Two months ago I posted David P. Goldman's article,  10 Reasons to Vote for Ted Cruz, which is worth a careful rereading.  I am a Cruz supporter based on all these considerations.