Perspective on the Evangelical "Threat"

Those about to fire off emails with refresher courses on the history of European Jewry, please save your efforts. For more than a century now, attacks on Jews have predominantly emanated from secular fascists and leftists, Arab nationalists and Islamists -- not Christians spreading the good word. It is in secular France, where gruesome murders of Jews are now an annual event, that men can't wear yarmulkes in public. And, rest assured, it is not because of Mormon missionaries. An American Jew is far more likely to encounter anti-Semitism on progressive campuses than anywhere else in this country.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/11/20/convert_me_if_you_can_144698.html

US Founded on ....

A useful review of the concepts that framed slavery in this country as it was born and grew from settlers to colonists to a nation, at about the same time that "civilization", for all of its many horrors, started to put its foot down to say human ownership is bad. Reading about the Comanche and the Navaho in the last few years, I was introduced to the ubiquity of slavery in pre-civilized humanity - it was a given. And, it might be regarded by some as a good thing, since those not enslaved were murdered. 

Civilization upped the ante by making it possible for tribes to profit by first capturing, then selling their competing tribesmen and women (and children). Fortunately for all of us, civilization also made the world a place of such profit and excess that it could afford to eliminate human ownership. 

https://thefederalist.com/2020/11/20/the-historical-record-shows-america-was-founded-against-racism-not-to-promote-it/

Violation of Voting Laws

Some of the stats in the article make it clear how obvious the cheating was - nasty! It's bad enough that it's possible that they'll get away with it, but I see no political will to change the systems to make them trustworthy.

There's no way Biden's lap dog media will ask about any of this.

"But there was a much bigger story behind Lai’s article: Election officials clearly violated the law by inspecting mail-in ballots before November 3. According to Pennsylvania’s election rules, county election boards were required to “safely keep the ballots in sealed or locked containers” until pre-canvassing legally began at 7 a.m. on Election Day."

https://amgreatness.com/2020/11/22/something-rotten-in-pennsylvania/

Thank you Mr. Steele

 A writer I always look for, his stuff has a perspective like no other. 

This lack of victimization amounts to an “absence of malice” that profoundly threatens the victim-focused black identity. Who are we without the malice of racism? Can we be black without being victims? The great diminishment (not eradication) of racism since the ’60s means that our victim-focused identity has become an anachronism. Well suited for the past, it strains for relevance in the present.

Thus, for many blacks today—especially the young—there is a feeling of inauthenticity, that one is only thinly black because one isn’t racially persecuted. “Systemic racism” is a term that tries to recover authenticity for a less and less convincing black identity. This racism is really more compensatory than systemic. It was invented to make up for the increasing absence of the real thing.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-inauthenticity-behind-black-lives-matter-11606069287?mod=djemalertNEWS

Thanksgiving 2020

 I spent Thanksgivings either in Florence or Demopolis, Alabama. We lived in Florence and had grandparents there. Demopolis held hunting camp with extended family, and family tradition that ran 50 years, and a huge feast with kid tables and all kinds of family stories.  

We were so white and professional and religious and polite and, at least for the kids, oblivious.

Most of my relatives were married and older and successful in their fields of work. Their professions were thinks like airline pilot, NASA engineer, accountant, doctor, civil engineer, lawyer and businessmen. I don't know that any of the spouses worked. Virtually all of the couples had children.

These were hard working people and very kind and mannerly. They could also hunt, fish, work a farm and had travelled the world. Many were veterans. They were what Brokaw called "the greatest generation", having lived through the world wars, the 1918 flu pandemic, the depression, the Korean war, Viet Nam, the 60s and the Cold War. They grieved the Kennedys and King, and saw the attempted assassinations of Wallace, Ford and Reagan. 

I don't know if they were democrats or republicans. Much more relevant was that some were Auburn fans. We didn't love those folks any less, though, and enjoyed playing poker with them (gentlemen's poker, nickel-dime-quarter, max of 3 raises per round of betting, nothing wild), getting them some branch water for the whiskey (I never saw one drunk until later when my granddad's alcoholism was beyond hiding), letting them tell us about squirrel hunting weapons, and having them set up shooting challenges after lunch at hunting camp. 

I recently acquired a 20 gauge double barrel shotgun. My uncle Ellery, WWII pilot and NASA engineer, of the even, confident temperament and always ready with a warm greeting and grin, used to hunt with a 20 gauge double. I asked once why he didn't get a 12 gauge - bigger must be better, right? His reply was polite and firm and he noted he didn't need a bigger shotgun for squirrel hunting, the 20 was plenty. He may have pointed out how the 20 was also lighter and more pleasant to carry in the field. He probably remembered when hunting for food meant using the least expensive ammo (shells for the 20 being cheaper than for a 12). I had forgotten that exchange until recently as I described why I purchased the 20 to my youngest son. I dismissed Uncle Ellery's logic outright all those years ago, since I didn't value light weight or "big enough" - I was a teenager, I wanted "more".  I used magnum 5 or 6 shot for my 12 gauge semi auto, (although I had plenty of luck shooting squirrels with a single barrel 20 until I was deemed big and responsible enough to handle the 12 gauge at age 12).  I'm looking forward to toting the 20 gauge double next year for squirrels or turkey or some such game, to complete the circle of Uncle Ellery's wisdom. 

I liked some more than others, of course, but they were all admirable men. I never saw them say an unkind thing to another person of any race, or treat a spouse with anything but kindness and respect. They tended to their kids, they loved their sick or healthy spouses and they acted interested in all us kids. I didn't have as much luck success find friends my own age back then, and their care and interaction was a gift. Of course, I found out later their struggles were hidden to me, and some were not as kind as they seemed. Nonetheless, the strong, kind, competent man, even tempered and hard working, was the vision of masculinity I grew up in.  

I didn't know how profound and lucky that experience was. No doubt, what I believed would be "the good life" was what I saw from my parents and grandparents and that was reflected by these men and their families. 

Those days are gone. Most of them are gone. I live 2000 miles to the north. I've grieved having lost touch with them, but that's what a US Navy career will do to a person (and knowing that, I delayed joining for as long as I could).

Today I am thankful for them, for that time, and for the gifts they gave that still benefit me today.

Sloppy Thieves?

An unprecedented number of mail-in and absentee ballots were cast this year, and practically everyone expected that this would result in a higher-than-usual rate of ballots being rejected for various flaws, such as lacking a secrecy envelope or missing information. In Pennsylvania, tens or hundreds of thousands of ballots were likely to be rejected, based on historical patterns. Instead, a mere 0.03 percent of mail-in ballots were ultimately rejected—somewhere in the neighborhood of about 1,000 votes.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/mkt_app/the-thieves-who-stole-our-election-got-sloppy_3592153.html?v=ul?utm_source=partner

Back to 2005

They called on states to increase voter ID requirements; to be leery of mail-in voting; to halt ballot harvesting; to maintain voter lists, in part to ensure dead people are promptly removed from them; to allow election observers to monitor ballot counting; and to make sure voting machines are working properly.

They also wanted the media to refrain from calling elections too early and from touting exit polls.

All of this may sound eerily similar to the issues in the prolonged presidential election battle of 2020. But these were among the 87 recommendations from the 2005 report of the bipartisan Commission on Federal Election Reform, known informally as the Carter-Baker Commission.

https://www.dailysignal.com/2020/11/20/7-ways-the-2005-carter-baker-report-could-have-averted-problems-with-2020-election/