Friday, June 26, 2015

The Supreme Court Does the Impossible

Not sure where we left off, but then again, I will align myself with the gentleman from Colombia, who says... he says a few choice things, actually, for example, that his sentences are merely "dots of color in a pointillist painting"; nor do his words try to explain, but rather, "circumscribe the mystery." And he also says something about being less like a tree and more like a bush that grows every which way from the center out.

In other words, it doesn't really matter where we begin so long as we are either starting from or returning to First Principles, AKA Alpha and Omega. For only first principles can really bite into reality and generate traction for the vertical ascent. Without them we cannot "defy gravity," as it were, at least on the intellectual plane.

Indeed, if everything were just contingencies and not principles, then we could never get off the goround, could we? Then we would be in the position of the krugmaniacal Keynesian who stands in a bucket while attempting to lift himself by the handle.

This book by Lings -- Symbol & Archetype: A Study of the Meaning of Existence -- is all about first principles. The second half of the title is a hint: the meaning of existence.

Oh great. Just clicked over to Drudge. Let the learned gentleman from Colombia have the floor: "Moral indignation is not truly sincere unless it literally ends in vomiting."

Excuse me for a moment. I need a bigger bucket.

"The fool, seeing that customs change, says that morality varies." The same fool "does not content himself with violating an ethical rule: he claims that his transgression becomes a new rule" (Don Colacho).

Oh well. "Civilization is what old men manage to salvage from the onslaught of young idealists." Besides, "Whoever defeats a noble cause is the one who has really been defeated." Therefore, "The cost of progress is calculated in fools," and I can't count that high.

Speaking of first principles, the SCOTUS decision is a violation of the first rank, because it goes to the very basis of civilization. Perhaps we'll get into that more deeply once this acute nausea subsides a bit.

I wouldn't blame the Creator if he withdraws that providential hand that has both guided and bailed us out so many times over the past 250 years. Why bother with these loons?

It's one thing to be fallen. It's something else entirely to confuse down and up. Once that happens, then man enthusiastically pursues his own destruction. But nothing obliges us to participate in the sickness of the world. Well, except the IRS.

I feel like I'm live-blogging a black hole. This is a Dark Day, and it has nothing whatsoever to do with animus toward homosexuals. Indeed, I have a homosexual relative by marriage, an artist, and one of his works hangs on my office wall. If someone can't appreciate the distinction between micro and macro, between private behavior and the state presuming to redefine reality, then they are too unsophisticated and too insentient to even bother with. Let the dead bury the tenured.

For Lings, what we call the "fall" results in a kind of veiling, the veil being part of the "atmosphere" that opens up between divine and human, terrestrial and celestial. The path of return is "upward," but it is not as if we have lost all O-rientation.

Rather, "the science of symbols is inextricably linked with the path of return," for these symbols "are reminders for the spiritual traveller of man's lost perfection." Or, they may be nuisances, depending on the case (e.g., marriage, which can obviously only be between man and woman without ceasing to be what it is; to not know this truism is to not know what marriage is, even if one is technically married).

The spiritual adventure always involves "swimming against the tide." What makes the contemporary journey a little more tricky is that the stream is a sewer, so we are battling both gravity and ambient toxicity. That's okay. The exercise just makes our wings stronger, and exposure to the left makes our immune system all the more robust. Like a child who eats dirt, I have the antibodies acquired during my many years of exposure to higher education.

About that shrub alluded to in the first paragraph. Imagine looking down on a shrub, which seems to grow in every direction from a central point. Or better, imagine a spider's web, which "is all the more apt inasmuch as the web is woven out of the substance of its 'creator.'" For Lings, this provides a fruitful symbol of the cosmos.

In considering the web, "The concentric circles represent the hierarchy of the different worlds," such that "the more outward the circle, the lower its hierarchic degree." Thus, if the central point is "truth" or "sanctity" or "Christ," then the outer circle would represent darkness, journalism, and tenure.

But in addition to the concentric circles, there are also radii from the center out. Thus, we are never really separate from the Principle; you could say the circles represent immanence, while the radii signify transcendence. Without the radii, we would indeed by stuck like flies in whatever circle we happen to inhabit.

Lings makes the helpful point that at the "end" of each radii is a symbol. Or better, at the center is an archetype, while at the outer end is a symbol that more or less reflects the archetype. The local symbol is an emanation or prolongation of the nonlocal archetype, as it were.

Thus, for example, herebelow, marriage is a symbol that reflects a much higher and deeper archetype, ultimately the union of male and female, or absolute and infinite and other primordial complementarities.

This is the archetype the Supreme Court presumes to be qualified to destroy. Which is analogous to Iranian mullahs feeling qualified to destroy the bond between protons and neutrons. The result is vast destruction, the "unleashing of hell," so to speak. Likewise, to undermine the primordial link between male and female is to unleash a different kind of hell, but equally destructive.

Now, bearing the image of the web in mind, we see that there will necessarily be some things that "fall between the cracks," so to speak, i.e., the indeterminate spaces between the radii.

What sorts of things are these? I would say these spaces are filled with human illusion -- for there is no other kind -- i.e., with things that cannot be, because they have no ontological basis. In one sense they "must be," man being what he is. And yet, they "cannot be," for they are like the possibility of the impossible, or the nihilistic side of freedom, detached from principles and from God.

So, give the Supreme Court credit for doing the impossible.

65 comments:

julie said...

Last week, after the shooting in Charleston, seeing how that church and the city as a whole responded was like finding a beacon of beauty and light cutting through the black clouds of bullshit, and in spite of the horrific event that triggered it I felt a stirring of hope for my country.

Today...
I think I need a bucket.

Gagdad Bob said...

You can always count on the left to be magnanimous in victory. Maybe in an alternate universe.

Gagdad Bob said...

To not know what is at stake, or to not see the effects of proximate causes, defines the left.

John said...

Be consoled by the fact that no secular state can define anything. If the Orthodox Church starts marrying gays, then you can look to a real problem.

julie said...

I'm not so much concerned about the Orthodox marrying gays as I am that they will be forced, along with any other orthodox Christians, to support gays in their churches and schools or else lose their tax-exempt status. How long until there's a "state-approved" orthodox church, similar to the state-approved churches of China?

The ratchet of Satan said...

click!

julie said...

And how long until it is not merely optional, but necessary for serious Christians to hold services in their homes again, informally, to avoid the eye of the law?

julie said...

Or as my husband likes to call it, the Eye of Sauron.

John said...

That's all possible. It still doesn't redefine marriage. Indeed, when you seek for some kind of state granted privilege, such as tax exempt status, you are, at that time, putting yourself into a dependent relationship with the state. It can be benign for a time, but it may not always be.
This is precisely how federal money, and therefore influence, gets itself into local schools.

John Lien said...

...you could say the circles represent immanence, while the radii signify transcendence... Lings makes the helpful point that at the "end" of each radii is a symbol. Or better, at the center is an archetype, while at the outer end is a symbol that more or less reflects the archetype.

Interesting analogy, hate spiders though.

julie said...

I took the kiddos walking through the local woods this morning, and realized that if I were a native naming seasons in Florida at least one of them would be "giant spider season."

John Lien said...

Churches need to man up and give the FEDGOV a hearty FU to their tax-exempt threat. Don't you think God will make up the difference?


julie said...

I do, actually. Though this past Sunday's reading comes to mind, the one about the storm on the Sea of Galilee when Jesus slept in the bow, and the Apostles were panicking. It's fair to say that this country is in the midst of some pretty major storms right now, and people of faith are, quite naturally, finding it difficult not to panic, no matter how real and near the presence of Christ may be.

It's hard to maintain that trust in God, when the whole world seems to be going mad. I suspect a great many good people will fail.

vanderleun said...

In the end, the Court and its acolytes and all that celebrate this will drown in their own blood.

Gagdad Bob said...

Cold comfort if I drown in my own vomit first.

Anonymous said...

Well, the spiders have a tough row to hoe. So does everything. At least they work in space, and get to be from somewhere.

When the world of man does what it always does, then it is wise to seek out the waste places that no one much attends to.

Hell, even the demons know that stuff. Not so much temporary constructs. Just Life, needing attention.

Does not pay very well. Manna, locusts, honey.

The true Church has to live somewhere, no? I hear that is just a pile of shiny rocks.

Or just shiny dust, carried by threads. Life. Very scary, but can speak english when required.

You know, self selection sometimes leaves the nest for whatever.

Gagdad Bob said...

At least some fine insultainment from Scalia:

"The Supreme Court of the United States has descended from the disciplined legal reasoning of John Marshall and Joseph Story to the mystical aphorisms of the fortune cookie."

That's racist!

Anonymous said...

I put some cash in the building fund box of my tiny, local Orthodox Church last Sunday. This Sunday I think I'll pull it out. By the time we raise enough money we'll be back to the days of worshipping in the catacombs and people's homes.

Gagdad Bob said...

That's what Ratzinger thought: that we'd return to a new age of catacomb Christianity. In a sense, we will trade places with homosexuals (albeit 50 years ago) formerly living their secret lives "in the shadows." Not sure why they wanted to give that up. There's something to be said for the excitement and romance of secrecy, exile, and rebellion.

Gagdad Bob said...

In the closet we go!

Gagdad Bob said...

I would say Christianity is more vividly understood when the diabolical is in your face.

Gagdad Bob said...

The new moral miniscularity.

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

Scalia does a good job knockin' those asshats off of their high horse.

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

"I feel like I'm live-blogging a black hole. This is a Dark Day, and it has nothing whatsoever to do with animus toward homosexuals. Indeed, I have a homosexual relative by marriage, an artist, and one of his works hangs on my office wall. If someone can't appreciate the distinction between micro and macro, between private behavior and the state presuming to redefine reality, then they are too unsophisticated and too insentient to even bother with. Let the dead bury the tenured."

Aye. When one can't even understand that tjey ain't gonna be moved when reality mugs them. They simply blame us rather than admit the obvious.

Skully said...

Yeah, the lefties sure do hate the messengers, and they will never be satisfied until we are imprisoned and/or killed.

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

Too bad the America haters don't move to Greece rather than turn the U.S. into Greece. Damn Greecers.

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

Best we can do now is sabotage:

http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/2015/06/be-best-saboteur-you-can-be.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+FromNyToIsraelSultanRevealsTheStoriesBehindTheNews+%28from+NY+to+Israel+Sultan+Reveals+The+Stories+Behind+the+News%29

Skully said...

I always wanted to be a gorilla fighter.

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

"When a system acts illegally, then it's dictates aren't the law of the land, they are the law of force."

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

"When we follow the law, we do so because it is right. When we are coerced, we are at gunpoint by an illegitimate system. Those who compel us are not any different than criminals."

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

Silver lining:

"Every liberal victory is not a triumph. It is another pile of dirt on their own graves. It is another straw on the back of the camel. It is another demonstration that they are corrupt and illegitimate. Their latest victories were gained by abusing the process. They will in the long run lose them just as criminals eventually lose their loot. They have not defeated us. They have corrupted themselves."

Hale Adams said...

Bob,

I suppose I'm not "picking up" on precisely why you and the other commenters here are so appalled by the SCOTUS ruling on gay marriage.

Let me start by saying that I am NOT a married man, nor am I a homosexual.

Let me say also that I haven't had a girlfriend in nearly thirty years. The relationship didn't work out, probably because I learned caution a long long time before the relationship, and the experience only reinforced my cautiousness.

I can understand the "Eeww! Gross!" factor well enough. What I don't get is the nausea. So Manny and Moe can get hitched, and will no doubt take on Jack in an occasional three-some. *shrugs*

A wedding is merely the public declaration of partnership between two people. Such a public declaration is usually recorded by some official, and becomes a binding contract between those two people. That official is usually a civil officer, as contracts are a matter of civil law.

A marriage is the relationship between the two wedded people -- the working-out over time of the partnership, in all its aspects. Beyond the merely economic aspects, that is something the State really can't address -- the emotional and spiritual life of the couple is utterly beyond its competence. The emotion and spiritual life of the couple is, however, the proper sphere of action of the Church.

Given (as I see it, and I may well have my head up my backside) those two premises, I have to wonder why the Hell the Church is in the wedding business. That's not to say that the Church can't tell its followers that they have to have the blessings of a priest to be members in good standing of the Church -- the Church has every right to lay out the rules for its members. But to actually perform a wedding as a binding legal act? In doing so, the Church is acting as the agent of the State, and (given that God and Caesar are two very different entities) now it wonders why it and the State are working at cross-purposes? (Please pardon the inadvertent pun.) It's said that if one sups with the Devil, one really should use a long-handled spoon. Of late, the Church leadership has forgotten that, and now wonders why it's missing a few fingers? Cheese-and-rice! *grumble*grumble*grumble*

As for the Church being forced to perform gay weddings, the Church can't very well be forced to perform gay weddings if it doesn't perform weddings as an agent of the State. Oh, I suppose some yahoos may try to force the issue, but if they get told that they're not welcome (flattening their car's tires while they're facing off with the priest would do it, I think) they won't stick around. And the State would have no traction, as the legal validity of their wedding has nothing to do with what the Church does or doesn't do.

Yes, I don't like the Left any more that you do, Bob. And I can't say as I think very highly of the Supreme Court right now -- the ruling on Obamacare yesterday brings to me a line from "Alice in Wonderland" about "words meaning what I say they mean". But save your energy for more important things, like insisting that the Constitution be obeyed, and the rogue elements of the Federal Government get reined-in (and preferably be sent off to prison, where they belong).

To paraphrase Gerard at his blog: Pull up a chair and grab some popcorn -- the soap opera is about to begin.

Hale Adams
Pikesville, People's still-mostly-Democratic Republic of Maryland

Hale Adams said...

Oy. And vey. (My boss is a Jewish electrician -- HI HI -- I've picked up a bit of Yiddish over the last few years.) Too many typos, too little sleep.

Hale

julie said...

Speaking for myself, there are a few components here:

1) I really don't care where grown adults choose to stick their dangly and squishy bits, for the most part. Bob's obligatory disclaimer speaks for me as well; I have at least one gay relative, whom I love unreservedly and wish every happiness in life. Her intrinsic dignity is not made less by the fact that she is gay, and I would be just as welcoming to any partner she has or had. However, she has also lived much of her life in a way that suggests she has always been desperately unhappy, and this unhappiness does not seem to have anything to do with whether the culture accepts her sexual preference, nor whether she could have married any of her long-term partners. There is a brokenness; I do not know the reason. "Expressing" her sexuality and living "true to herself" never fixed that, and arguably may have made it worse. If we do not have the freedom to look objectively at homosexuality and all that comes of it and say, "this is not a good and healthy way to live one's life" - as increasingly, ordinary people don't on pain of losing their livelihood - then we are forced to be complicit in the lie. If that does not make you want to vomit, then clearly our gag reflexes have different settings.

2) I have no problem if churches decide to separate their recognition of marriage from anything having to do with the state. I also have no particular problem with churches giving up their tax-exempt status, though for many churches the extra cost would probably be a death-knell. But do you honestly believe this will stop there, or that a few flattened tires will solve the problem? Churches will be forced to perform gay marriages, or else face a battery of discrimination suits. Even if they win said suits, the costs will likely be enough to close most of their doors. The object here is not to change public opinion about gay long-term relationships, the object is, again, to force Christians to be complicit in the lie. Because if they go along with it, their faith will seem to be rendered meaningless, and if they don't go along with it, their places of worship, education, and aid and succor will be systematically taken down. The enemy here is not marriage, the enemy is Christianity and Truth.

3) I agree with pretty much everything Scalia had to say on the subject, and it's pretty clear he wants to vomit as well. The violence done to the Constitution in the past couple of days is yet another layer of disgustingness heaped upon the mountain of excreta this administration has already poured forth on the functioning of our nation. I have pretty much already given up any idea that the culture has moved past me, and accepted the fact that increasingly, the innocuous minutiae of my life will include a daily committing of various felonies having nothing to do with violent crime nor criminal intent, but which could ruin my life and the lives of everyone I love if the wrong public servant decides it would be worth his time for any reason; this does not mean I am immune to feeling sorrow at the further degradation of the rule of law that once provided the framework to make this nation the greatest in the world.

Ultimately, of course, I must trust that whatever happens, though much is intended for evil right now, God will still affect things for good for those who love Him. But it is not wrong to be affected by what is happening, nor to keep a bucket handy.

USS Ben USN (Ret) said...

Well said, Julie.
I would only add that when the state can change the definitions and meanings of words, traditions and sacraments, by force, as well as what Julie mentiined, force those who don't believe the lies to accept them or else face state-sanctioned consequences, it is devastating to our rights and liberties.

Instead of doing all of that, why couldn't gays who want the same privileges of a married couple, legally speaking, call it homosexual unions or something else? Why co-opt the word and institution of marriage?
It isn't to get equal treatment, it is, again, to coerce and force others to accept what isn't true.

The goal isn't about rights for gays, it's about the quest for power over anyone who might disagree with whatever they say, especially when it's not true.
When something is true it doesn't require power and force to be true.
Only lies require that.

Winston said...

2+2=5!

Gagdad Bob said...

There so many reason nausea is the order of the day.

I might start by reading Dennis Prager's lengthy essay on homosexuality (just google it). The achievement of monogamous heterosexuality is one of the hallmarks and foundations's of western civilization. The prevalence of homosexuality his hardly fixed, but varies greatly with the degree to which it is accepted and promoted, as in ancient Greece.

Which goes to one of my main irritations -- that homosexuality is not some kind of "mystical essence," but rather, most often an easily recognized mental illness rooted in various exigencies and traumas of early childhood. This was well understood prior to 1973, when, through fraud and intimidation, the homosexual lobby changed all that. If you don't think it's an illness, check out one of -- what's her name? Zombie? -- one of her photo essays of Gay Pride Days. Pathology on Parade. Also, consider what happens when homosexuality is unleashed without restraint. The S.F. bathhouse scene is a natural consequence. Literally thousands of anonymous sexual encounters. This behavior is a pathological compulsion, by no means "free," let alone conducive to happiness.

I would also recommend the book Making Gay Okay: How Rationalizing Homosexual Behavior Is Changing Everything. The health and longevity consequences of male homosexuality alone are shocking -- much more damaging than the the liberal satan Tobacco. HIV is hardly the only health consequence of homosexuality.

I have no doubt that a handful of people -- mostly males -- are "born gay," but so what? You don't normalize an abnormality, you have compassion for it. And even then, it is not the homosexuality that is inborn, but certain traits that predispose one to homosexuality. One needs to have the traits followed by reinforcement or trauma from the environment.

I have seen thousands of patients over the years, and homosexuals are definitely less than one percent. But of the ones I've seen, there hasn't been a single one who didn't have rather florid personality pathology, and again, easily recognized developmental trauma. The most recent one was raped by his father, for example. But believe it or not, it never once occurred to him that there might be a connection between this and his homosexual attraction. Rather, he just did "what came naturally," and of course found a community to reinforce his "natural" impulses.

Speaking of which, this isn't about acceptance of homosexuality but the state forcing an agenda. Thus, it is for all practical purposes against the law for a psychologist to help a person with same-sex issues. Re the example above, the state says you can't help this person overcome his trauma, which is to say, the state mandates psychological illness.

Nor can you help an adolescent with sexual confusion -- which many adolescents have. For a certain type of confused adolescent, it "solves everything" to decide you're gay.

Another point: the purpose of the government is to protect our natural rights, one of which is marriage, which is not only prior to the state, but its basis. Nothing could be more unnatural -- and I mean this literally, not as in insult -- than homosexuality, for if nature were homosexual, it would cease to exist -- except for single cells.

There's much more, but let a man drink his coffee in peace.

Gagdad Bob said...

Another important book that goes to this is Marriage and Civilization: How Monogamy Made Us Human. It comports in many ways with what I had to say about it in the Coonifesto, i.e., that the tripartite family is the terrestrial icon of the trinity and the very basis of our humanness. Mess with it and you are playing with cosmic dynamite.

John said...

This article has some interesting bits to say on the subject:
http://www.mercyseat.net/marriagelicense.html

One of the continual problems that the religious right has is to get the state to do its bidding. For example, it was they who demanded that the state force Mormons to abandon polygamy in the late 1800's. I believe it was in Germany, where religious zealots wanted the state involved in marriage in the first place, to enforce adultery laws. When you attempt to enlist a secular state to enforce your religious views, it will, inevitably, turn on you and force you to accept its secular views.
This happens in so many domains. Back in the late 1970's, Carter covertly enlisted the fanatic mujaheddin to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan. Those same forces became Al-Quaeda. And so it goes. You reap what you sow.

julie said...

I would also note that this is having a real and serious effect on today's teens, to the point where it is becoming increasingly common among highschoolers to describe themselves as pretty much anything but heterosexual. Because even if you're straight, it's not cool to say so.

Re. gay men who don't recognize childhood trauma as having influenced them, I'm also reminded of the girls who become strippers (or I suppose these days, porn) totally just for the money which is helping them to get through college, and not at all because they were raped, molested, or otherwise sexualized at an early age, or harbor serious daddy issues.

Gagdad Bob said...

Bear in mind to that SCOTUS has officially placed homosexuality on the same plane as race. Just as racism has become completely marginalized and socially unacceptable, the same will be true of failure to celebrate same-sex attraction. Anyone who fails to get with the program will be treated exactly as racists are, and will be subject to violence, intimidation, and ridicule. The worst thing about it is, it legitimizes the expression of Liberal Hate, of which there is never a shortage. People who are insane with hate will be seen as "normal" (indeed, already are).

John said...

So true, Julie. In my daighter's freshman year of high school, the school, heaven know why, conducted a survey about sexual orientation. 80% said they were something other than homosexual. This is in the Midwest! I told her that it was complete confusion and no more than 1% of the population is truly homosexual. I pulled her out of school. Better to read a thousand books.
Incomplete agree with Bob that even this 1% is abnormal and should be considered as such. In the same way we deal with someone born with Down Syndrome. We have compassion, but no one ever claims it is something to be sought after, championed, etc.
We are so far off the road at this point.

Gagdad Bob said...

John, I have to respectfully take issue, because culture and tradition are prior to the state, and the purpose of the state is to preserve and protect them. The first principle of government cannot be the pure abstraction of the individual, nor can one have civilization without stable families. Hayek said something to the effect that political liberty is only possible in the context of specific traditions. An excellent book in this regard is The Great Debate, by Yuval Levin.

John said...

Pardon. I said 80% said they were something other than homosexual. Should have been heterosexual.

Gagdad Bob said...

Remember, celebrating marriage was not "doing the bidding" of conservatives. Rather, it was just in the nature of things. Even Obama said so as recently as three years ago. So it's a full on attack from the left, not a case of the right using the state to do advance an agenda. No one had to defend marriage until quite recently, to such an extent that almost no one even knows how to do so, because the terms of debate don't allow it. In other words, the left chooses the weapons, and the weapons predetermine the outcome, i.e., abstract individual liberty detached from all human and practical realities.

John said...

Bob, while I don't disagree that this ought to be the purpose of government, I don't think this view of government could foresee the all encompassing nature of the State and its nature. We imagine we can control it. No constitution can. John Roberts is the perfect example of how you can't. Upstanding family man. Catholic. Willing to write whatever it takes to allow the state to say what it wants about the constitution. One can say with near certitude that if 5 judges had not been for codifying gay marriage, he would have been the 5th.

John said...

The solution could have been to get out in front of it, as they did in, say, Croatia. Get out in front by making all unions recognized by the state, with corresponding benefits. Then, an amendment to the constitution defining marriage as between a man and a woman. Probably would not work here, but it would have been the compromise needed. Could have named it the Dick Cheney amendment.

Gagdad Bob said...

So, cheer up, everybody. The worst is yet to come.

The rule of law was nice while it lasted. On to the rule of Good Intentions.

Gagdad Bob said...

The road to liberal hell is paved with them...

Gagdad Bob said...

In the absence of God, history really is circular. Thus, we are right back to our primitive beginnings, before we figured out that polymorphous sexuality wasn't conducive to civilization.

As Joyce teaches us in FW -- following Vico -- there are the ages of chaos, gods, heroes, men, and then back to primordial chaos.

Gagdad Bob said...

Back to before when God separates light from dark and upper from lower waters. That's wayyyyyy back...

Gagdad Bob said...

Interesting take. We are now in a post-constitutional age in which mob rule is from the top down: instead of populism, it is Harvard-Yale unpopulism. The founders tried to protect us from the evils of democracy, but apparently didn't foresee the mob rule of SCOTUS.

John said...

Republican senators John McCain, Chuck Grassley, Connie Mack, Trent Lott, John Danforth, Phil Gramm, Strom Thurmond, and Bob Dole voted to confirm Ruth Ginsberg. The Senate confirmation vote was 96-3.
Anthony Kennedy was appointed by Ronald Reagan. Senate vote: 97-0.

Gagdad Bob said...

Not to mention Sandra Day O'Connor. Legal clowns all.

Gagdad Bob said...

One can actually deduce the fall from the empirical fact that there is nothing humans can't and won't fuck up.

Gagdad Bob said...

Give him paradise and he'll find a way to screw it up. Which may be the eventual subtitle of the History of the United States when all is said and done.

Kurt said...

What I find most troubling about this disaster is the fact that none of the negative health implications of homosexuality will ever be reported by the MSM. Higher rates of suicide and depression, substance abuse, domestic violence, apocaplyptic rates of STD's to say nothing of HIV as partially documented in this article (http://takimag.com/contributor/elizabethmccaw/318#axzz3eB9C6kJW). And that doesn't even address the most serious consequences of a homosexual lifestyle: spiritual degradation and eventual destruction. No, we can't talk about those things. We are just supposed to applaud and wave the rainbow banner. And then when paradise fails to arrive for these unfortunate folks it won't be their fault, it will be ours - conservatives, traditionalists, people with just plain common-sense - it will be our fault. And we will have to be destroyed. It is progressivism in a nutshell: defy reality and blame someone else when it all goes to hell. Well hell just got a big step closer to coming to the United States. Lord God in Heaven, spare a remnant, spare a remnant Lord I pray...

Gagdad Bob said...

Yup.

They try to pretend the depression and suicide are due to "homophobia," when these people are the most cherished pets of the left and the culture in general, beyond all criticism. They can do no wrong.

Conversely, conservatives, who are the most hated, are the most happy Americans. Conservative women rank #1, while liberal "men" rank last.

Gagdad Bob said...

Our reason for hope is rooted in the simple fact that things that can't go on, won't go on. Things that are not in accord with truth and reality eventually come crashing down. Entitlements, the college bubble, the IQ deficit, etc. Reality will have the last word.

Gagdad Bob said...

Liberal fantasy is simply unsustainable.

Kurt said...

And what really breaks my heart is that all these folks are being guided, stampeded really, through the Broad Gate and on towards their own destruction by the Left. To think that God loves all of these as much as He loves me and yet they still embrace death. The Left will have much to answer for when that terrible Last Day arrives. "Then the kings of the earth, the princes, the generals, the rich...hid in caves and among the rocks of the mountains. They called to the mountains and the rocks, 'Fall on us and hide us from the face of Him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! For the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?'" (Revelations 6:15-17) Not to get all Biblical on you, but like you said, reality will have the last word...

Gagdad Bob said...

Leftism is like the systematization of the fall. See here.

Kurt said...

That link brings to mind Schuon's thoughts on the difference between the 'outward' and the 'inward' man: "Man is thus called upon to choose...between the outward and the inward: the outward is compressive dispersion and death, the inward, dilating concentration and life...(by choosing the outward) man becomes enclosed in a cold, despairing, mortal night, with neither up nor down and without end...By contrast, when man advances towards the inward, he enters into a welcoming and peace-giving limitlessness, fundamentally happy although not easy to achieve in fact; for it is only through deifying inwardness, whatever its price, that man is perfectly in conformity with his nature.” (Survey of Metaphysics & Esoterism, 42)
To the Left reality is 100% outward, and by following that illusion over time it leaves the inward man completely dried up and lifeless. Empty cicada shells clinging to dying trees...

Gagdad Bob said...

Yes, that is one of the fundamental differences -- the outwardness from which so much mischief and mayhem follow. A philosophy of no locus of personal control, which appeals to barbarians of all kinds.

Gagdad Bob said...

Regarding those cicadas, Eliot pretty much nailed the barrenness of leftworld 100 years ago.

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