Listening to a talk on climate change that disputes the current views on global warming. He talks about the necessity of CO2 for the health of the planet, mentions a document signed by hundreds of scientiests that agree there is no climate emergency, which of course is suppressed by the media and Big Tech, and so on, I feel I need to listen again some time to understand the science issues better but it looks like a good argument.
How to Think About Climate Change | William Happer - YouTube
A couple of links to recent information about the politics of the Coronavirus. First a very short clip of a woman in Israel talking about the laws mandating the vacciine that are making life miserable for those who distrust it: Urgent Message from Llana Rachel in Israel - YouTube
Then there's a recent radio show by Christ Pinto on related events, the arrest of a pastor in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, for instance, for his violation of laws supposedly necessary to public health. He goes on to discuss the role of the Jesuits including the Jesuit influence of Anthony Fauci and Beill and Melinda Gates: NOTR - JESUITS, CORONAVIRUS & DR. FAUCI - 2.25.21 - Noise of Thunder Radio Show - Noise of Thunder Radio with Chris Pinto
Taxes - Regulations - Illegal Immigration -Minimum Wage - Environmental Policies
Since I'm about as obtuse as it's possible to be about things economic, I'm surprised to find myself understanding a few things and wanting to write about them. I guess it was the Trump Presidency and the frequent repititions I'd hear about his economic successes, from him and from conservatives, that finally made a few things make sense for the first time. (No way I'd ever have become a billionaire.)
SO. Reducing taxes and regulations on business brought back businesses that had left the country because of high taxes, allowed those in the country to hire more employees and expand their producion and sales.
OK so far?
That reduced the unemployment numbers enormously, the lowest for many years, and most tellingly among minorities. A great sucdcess one would think. Conservative economics works, it does what the liberals say they want to do but they actually have the opposite effect,. Their high taxes drive businesses out of the country or at least force them to cut back on hiring and expansion. Unemployment goes up.
There's also a big paradoxical benefit that I'd never heard before: MORE money flows into the government through taxesw when these policies are in place than when liberal policies are in place. Cuz the expansion of business bringing more profits means more taxes, not higher taxes, more taxes. Golly wow, wouldn't you think the liberals would learn a lesson from this? Why don't they?: Why is Biden now doing the exact opposite of what Trump showed works?
Oh I suppose they'll just say it's all a lie. Sigh.
There are lots of reasons to want to have a protected border but one big one is that illegal immogrants take jobs away from unskilled American workers. Something I hadn't known was that Cesar Chavez opposed illegal immigration because they took jobs from the members of his Farm Workers union. So why do liberals want to do this to American labor?
Another policy that kills jobs for unskilled labor is the minimum wage, so dear to the hearts of liberals. I understood that such a law forces businesses to cut back, can even drive some out of business altogether, which isn't good for the employment statistics. Now I've been hearing from some black pundits like Larry Elder how it deprives young blacks of entry level work opportunities, prevents them from finding unskilled work because businesses aren't going to pay such high wages for that work. These are young people just entering the work force who don't have families to support, most living with their parents. They need the experience of holding a job more than anything else and are now being deprived of that normal opportunity to learn in order to move up as they acquire skills and work habits. On a recent You Tube snippet of his show Elder played an old clip of economist Milton Friedman saying that the minimum wage is the most "anti-negro policy ever" or words to that effect.
You'd think SOME liberals would wake up, wouldn't you? Or are their motives in fact not what they claim they are? .
Oh and shutting down that gas pipeline. Supposed to be better for the environment? But it turns out it takes thousands of trucks polluting the envornment to transport the gas that had been transported more cleanly in the pipeline. So implementing regulations they intend to be good for the environment actually increases the carbon footprint so greatly it would be laughable if it were not so painful. I guess putting all those truck drivers to work is a tgood thing at least.
And then they shut down our own energy production for similarly wrongheaded good intentions which means the loss of thousands of jobs and the loss of the energy independence Trump had achieved, making us dependent again on foreign oil supply.
And all that is just NORMAL liberal economic stupidity although it is trending into the Marxist influence that is growing today on the Left..
In this fallen world the Evil One is still Prince and under his rule humanity stumbles around in the dark, accumulating sins against God and suffering the consequences, most mistaking this life for all there is.
Some even
revel in it. Carl Sagan introduced his
1980 TV series “Cosmos”with this famous line: “The Cosmos is all that is or was or ever will
be. Our feeblest contemplations of the
Cosmos stir us . . . . We know we are approaching the greatest of
mysteries.“
To which I
say a hearty “Bah! Humbug!”
And then there
was Darwin who said “There is grandeur
in this view of life . . . [that] from so simple a beginning endless forms most
beautiful and wonderful have been and
are being evolved.” He does suggest a
possible origin by a Creator but since that wouldn’t be the biblical Creator and today it’s all
nothing but chemistry anyway I give it the same Bah-humbug.
There
are clues in life that we were made for something better than a meaningless existence
in a vast cold universe of burning rocks, no matter how prettily they twinkle
in the night sky. I’m thinking of the human soul that is deeply
affected by, say, Pavarotti singing “Nessun Dorma” as you can see from quite a
number of You Tube “First Time Reaction” videos, that I mention in a previous
post. Many things other than music
also provoke deep feelings -- yes even the grandeur of the Cosmos and
biological life -- but in my own
experience it was music that brought this home to me years ago. I would cry hearing a Mozart symphony, or
especially Handel’s Messiah, because it seemed to me that there is nothing in
this life that deserves such glorious expression. How
can there be such music when there is no reality to which it corresponds? How can we be capable of such exalted
feelings without anything in reality worthy of them?
That
was before I believed in God of course. The
thing is, once you know that there is nothing in this life that deserves such
grand celebrations, that is, if the
Cosmos is all there is and we evolved from fish, it feels like a cheat. It IS a cheat. Because if this IS all there is then it is a
huge cheat, a sick joke on the human race.
When we are given these pathetic counterfeits of greatness and grandeur as
worthy of our deepest feelings it’s like trying to make a silk purse out of a
sow’s ear as the Proverb puts it.
Then
too, how do we talk ourselves into this common idea that we, these complex creatures
what are way overqualified for mere existence in the physical universe, live that
empty existence and then just go out like a light? I don’t know for sure what Dylan Thomas had
in mind when he wrote “Do not go gentle into that good night; rage, rage
against the dying of the light,” but it’s always hit me as a protest against
the cheat, the abysmal insult, of the idea of such a meaning-maker being
extinguished at death. Since he calls it
a “good” night I’m unsure if he meant that but in my opinion he should have
meant it.
Shakespeare
as usual nailed it:
Life's
but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That
struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And
then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told
by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying
nothing.
Absurdly
we tell ourselves it’s honest, courageous, grown-up of us to accept this fate
as reality itself. Or we rationalize our complex meaning-making minds
as sufficient unto themselves, though merely accidentally coughed up out of the
chemical soup of the universe. Some of us are just weak, it’s understandable
if we have to invent a fantasy, manage
to find a meaning in what is only our own solipsistic invention that corresponds
to no external reality. But that’s OK,
we’re good at doing that and we should be content with it. Or something like that. The
great cheat of it can be denied by such rationalizations. Religion is a crutch and all that. Where’s the evidence? they demand.
Oh
to pry even one person loose from these tawdry imitations at life so many of us
have taken for granted as our lot.
NO,
we are worth far far more than that. We
are an extravagantly over-designed being if the only point of it all is
physical and chemical, and our experience of it can be cynically summed up as “Life
is hard and then you die.” We have plenty of pleasures, happiness, fun in
this life, and plenty of worthwhile things to do, but we were made for more
than the best that is possible here, if the Cosmos is all there is and ever was.
But
the biblical God says otherwise:
What
is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest
him? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned
him with glory and honour.
Man
that is in honour, and understandeth not, is like the beasts that perish
Whoso
sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God
made he man. (Genesis 9:6)
And
from the hymn “O Holy Night” -- “Then He
appeared and the soul knew its worth.”
So it's pretty clear, isn't it, that the answer to the title question of the previous post is NO. Oh we COULD, it's not impossible in principle, it's just impossible given the way people think these days. Even going back to women's covering our heads in church, which is where I keep thinking it would have to start, is hardly likely, and if that is what would have to happen first none of the rest of it is going to happen. Oh I still hope and pray for that, I'd love to be proved wrong, but the resistance to that one piece of scripture is adamant in my experience. They got thtmselves convinced of the culture interpretation. The author of that interpretation is a Christian of impeccable integrity. Or they are the Pentecostals who insist on long hair but scorn the covering and do it with withering contempt for any other point of view. And I got the accusation of "legalist" too of course. No matter how good the credentials of those who have read it as I now do, no matter how good the reasoning in support ot it, the answer is ... well, in my experience the answer is mockery and sarcasm.
God could still turn the tide but it doesn't look like He wants to. And again, if we don't return to that simple principle of male headship how can we expect to get anywhere on the subject of gay marriage, just to mention the most prominent issue. Yes it probablly is the linch pin. It came out of the wagon wheel and the wheel has wobbled on without it but eventually it has to fall off. It would be SO easy to put it back in.
I like to think it's possible but I always come to the conclusion that it's not, and that means that things are just going to keep getting worse. And it's getting so bad it's hard to see it as anything other than the looming Finale as I've described it in so many recent posts.
What an arrogant know-it-all I am!
One of my themes on these blogs has been God's judgment and whether it's possible to stop it once it's begun. America has been under judgment for decades now, according to many Christian leaders. Although many denied its clear import, some recognized that 9/11 was God's judgment, at least a warning shot of judmgnet to come.
The biggest reason for judmgnet usually given is abortion, the ongoibng murder of unborn babies into the millions; but America has been proliferating many kinds of sins besides abortion. Christians want revival, we know we need revival but prayers for revivial have not brought revival, sometimes even very intense focused prayers. Something is blocking revival, probably some unrecognized sins. What might they be? I've spent some time trying to figure that out too.
It has to start with the churches. "Judgment begins at the house of God." We've seen many kinds of apostasies rise up over the last 150 years or so. These are in churches that call themselves Christian so much as we might like to disown them because we know they aren't really theologically Christian in many cases, their bearing that name implicates us with them. The prophet Daniel gave us the example of repenting on behalf of the covenant body to which we belong, in his case the nation of Israel. Although he personally had not committed many of the sins the nation had committed he nevertheless prayed as if he had, and repented for those sins as if they were his own.
The very denial that 9/11 was God's judgmnet is a sign of such apoastasy, the idea being that God wouldn't do such a thing. If it isn't understood that God is a God who judges sin there is really no point to the gospel itself. If God doesn't come in judgment there's no point in asking Him for mercy. If we fail so drastically to understand God's heart, that must open us to judgment.
I also believe the abandonment of the head covering for women is a cause of judgment. I came to this conclusion from my study of Paul's teaching on the subject in 2 Corinthians 11: 2-16. The covering was given up fairly recently partly on the basis of a very badly reasoned essay that imputed the practice Paul was advocating to culture rather than to apostolic authority which is how it had previously been understood. If we don't honor God's ordinance on the headship of men over women we have no ground for objecting to the violation of God's ordinance of marriage by legalizing gay marriage. I think this is a very serious point though it is usually dismissed as trivial. I've even considered that by abandoning the head covering in the churches we are responsible for opening the door to all the violations related to sex and marriage that have been proliferating in the culture for decades now.
Oh, a big one is our use of the National Cathedral for ecumenical prayer. There is one God and He said clearly in Isaiah that He will not give His glory to another. Praying to all the gods of all the cultures is NOT acceptable. We also have national prayer meetings that include other religions. This is a serious affront to God.
Why should God give us revival if we are not repenting of sins against Him?
Then recently I was listening to Larry Elder on the subject of reparations for black slavery
Why Reparations Will Actually Hurt Black America - YouTube
and he does a good job of showing that the idea is untenable for many reasons, some of them practical such as who qualifies to receive it and who should pay it, considering that most of us don't even have ancestors who were slave owners and much of today's population is descended from people who arrived after the era of slavery. And so on.
But then I'd been watching those "First-Time Reaction" videos of young black people responding to hearing Pavarotti singing for the firwst time. That led me to watch other videos of other singers doing some famous operatic arias, and especially to look for black opera singers. I discovered for instance "Three Mo' Tenors" who sing both opera and popular songs. I also listened to Marian Anderson, probably the first black to be a big star as an opera singer, got curious to know more about her so I looked her up on Wikipedia.
And there I found the story of how she applied for admission to a school and was told by the receptionist "We don't take colored here." or words to that effect. It reminded me that slavery was over, God judged us for it with the Civil War, but that Jim Crow was something else. Slavery and racism aren't the same thing.
I hurt for the insult to Marian Anderson and all thoe who had to endure it for some hundred years after the Civil War. I began to wonder if that era is part of why we are under God's judgment. Reparations may not be the answer to it, I don't know, all I know is the question was raised in my mind.
The churches need to repent of many things, the nation needs to repent, we need to be praying for God's wisdom even about what we need to repent of. We also have personal sins that need cleansing. I've personally been under God's chastisement for decades. I've fallen into the same sin more than once since then but repented (believe me,, repentance is agony, fear, remorse for undermined Christian witness, remorse for the wounded heart of God) and still the judgment is not lifted. Most recently He reminded me "My grace is sufficient for you" so that I understand it isn't going to end and I need not only to accept it but to rejoince in it as Paul did with his own "thorn in the flesh." He wasn't guilty of anything that deserved it, but although I have been guilty God also has other reasons for giving us afflictions. The point being we've all got a lot to repent of on a lot of levels, and we aren't going to see the situation in America improve until we do it according to God's wisdom.
It may be that America can't be saved unless we roll back Roe v Wade, roll back that execrable law that bestowed the right of free speech on pornography, roll back gay marriage, perhaps make some kind of restitution for Jim Crow even; but since it all has to start at the house of God it may be that none of that will happen until we reinstate the head covering in the churches. I do keep coming back to that. It may be the linch pin. If we fix that it may be easier to fix all the rest as God opens doors. Sin is not just the cause of judgment but is judgment itself. The more we sin the more we sin. Maybe the second step would be cleansing the National Cathedral of the worshippers of Dagon and Baal and their ilk. And remember, a right understanding of Romans 1 is that homosexuality is itself judgment on idolatry.
Friend went to a doctor about a rash who wanted to test her for allergies, asked for her history of allergic reactions and she mentioned an incident of anaphylactic shock from insect bites, to which he responded that she should not take the COVID vaccine! Further discussion brought out the information that it isn't just allergies to the ingredients in the vaccine that's a reason not to take it, but allergies to anything at all. Not that you'll necessarily die or have a severe reaction but you might with that particular medical history.
Look, take Quercetin and Zinc and Vitamin C or if you can get someone to prescribe it and a pharmacy to fill the prescription get HCQ and Zinc and an antibiotic, take either protocol prophylactically and increase the dose if you get COVID symptoms. I put up the Zelenko protocol for these things in other posts but I'll try to get back and repost it here.
