Maggie's Farm

Heck, with this sort of insanity, all the Brits will have left is nun jokes. Unlike the whiners and babies, nuns can take a joke.

Remind me. What year was it that Britain was successfully invaded by the alien transexual moonbat body-snatchers?

Story with updates at Insty, if anyone missed it yesterday.

Steyn takes a backward look at Allan Bloom's classic The Closing of the American Mind in a piece in New Criterion entitled Twenty Years Ago Today.

He concludes:

At my local school in New Hampshire, the music teacher eschews the classics and teaches boomer rock, much to the bemusement of her young charges for whom forty-year-old pop songs are as remote as 400-year-old sonatas. Children are asked to pick a favorite Beatle. Why would a six-year-old have such a thing? The Fab Four split up thirty years before he was born. It’s like my old music teacher asking me to pick my favorite member of Paul Whiteman’s Yacht Club Boys.

But she never did. And that’s the biggest difference between 2007 and 1987. What Allan Bloom observed in his students can now be found in the teachers.

Hitchins: Jihadists aren't in Afghanistan - or Iraq - because we are there. A quote:

"No end in sight" is another favorite mantra of the anti-war mentality. And how true that melancholy reflection seems to be. The latest news is of a very nasty Islamic insurgency in southern Thailand, butchering Buddhist villages (remember the Taliban assault on the Buddha statues at Bamiyan?) and making demands for the imposition of sharia law. Perhaps someone will identify for me which Thai and Buddhist—or Western imperialist—crimes have led to this sudden development. Or perhaps it will be admitted, however grudgingly and belatedly, that there is something sui generis about Islamist fanaticism: something that is looking for a confrontation with every non-Muslim society in the world and is determined to pursue it with the utmost violence and cruelty. It is also seeking a confrontation with some Muslim states and societies.

Read the whole thing. Jihad is a world-wide movement of violence and oppression in the name of their god: they say so themselves. Pretending it ain't so does no good whatsoever. This will go on for a long time, in many places.

At Regnum Christi, you can sign up for an emailed daily morning scripture meditation.

They are very good. It's a discipline for beginning the day on the right foot. 

For example, here is yesterday's:

Monday of the Thirty-First Week in Ordinary TimeFather Steven Reilly, LC

Luke 14: 12-14
Jesus went to dine at the home of one of the leading Pharisees. He said to the host who invited him, "When you hold a lunch or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or your wealthy neighbors, in case they may invite you back and you have repayment. Rather, when you hold a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind; blessed indeed will you be because of their inability to repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous."

Introductory Prayer:Lord, I thank you for this time together. Speak to my soul; give me the nourishment I need so that I can get through the long day ahead!

Petition:Lord, grant me the grace to put your interests before my self-interest.

1. “You Scratch My Back…”    “… And I’ll scratch yours.” Unique is the individual who doesn’t keep at least one eye on his own self-interest at all times. For many, life is about leverage, and good deeds are investments that will reap future profits. In this parable, Jesus invites us to think outside that human box and more in the divine one. God derives no personal benefits through showing us immeasurable love. We can’t, after all, give him anything that he doesn’t already have. Maybe we should be expanding our list of dinner invitations?

2. The Poor, the Crippled, the Lame, the Blind    Blessed Mother Teresa lived this Gospel verse in exemplary fashion. The story is told of a dying man, found lying in the street and brought to Missionaries of Charity’s House of the Dying. They gave him dignity that he had never known: “I have lived like a dog all my life. But now I will die like an angel.” Sometimes we also have opportunities to help others in dire need. Sometimes, more often, we can come to the aid of the person who is spiritually poor or crippled. Perhaps it is that person who is always in a foul mood, or that other who once spread a rumor about me. “Blessed will you be because of their inability to repay you.”

3. Self-interest vs. Resurrection    Fr. Joe always used to say this about his priesthood: “The pay is lousy, but the retirement benefits are out of this world.” Self-interest is about getting the positive payback here and now. True love and charity do not keep a score card to make sure that “it’s worth it.” No, we are living for eternity. Let’s ask the Lord to give us a better sense of the big picture, to see that those unrequited good deeds are the best ones. So you parents of the world, take heart! Your sacrifices will indeed find their reward, “in the resurrection of the righteous.”

Conversation with Christ: Dear Lord, how often I am thinking, “What’s in it for me?” Help me to reach out to others beyond the limits of my group. Help me to see that you are in every soul, not just the ones that in some way gratify me.

Resolution: I will do an act of charity for someone who doesn’t like me.

Derbyshire reviews Charles Taylor's "remarkable new book," A Secular Age. One quote:

Simply put, A Secular Age is a magisterial refutation of what Taylor calls the “subtraction story” of secularization. On this familiar narrative, secularization is simply an effect of the progress of science and rational inquiry. Taylor raises two related objections against it: first, that it misses the essentially moral dimension of the “exclusive humanism” that emerged in the 17th and 18th centuries, and which, in his view, is closely tied to an “ethic of freedom and beneficent order”; second, that the emergence of that humanism is too substantial an achievement to be explained by the subtraction story, which makes it seem as if human beings simply “fell into” conceiving of their moral capacities without reference to god.

Taylor goes further: not only is the discovery of “intra human” sources of benevolence the “charter of modern unbelief”, but religion itself played a significant role in shaping that ethical vision.

Read the whole thing. We have made that point here several times: Western humanism is Christian in its cultural core, but not in its soul.

I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.

Wimpy, to Popeye

Since we posted Zaccheus today, these comments seem timely. (Tax collectors, in Roman times, were wealthy because they worked on commission, and I suspect that they were viewed the same way we view the IRS.)

Rob Port says Most rich people are smarter than you, and work harder.

I have no argument with that. My experience with people bears it out. I would add, however, that most rich people are pretty good at dealing with people, too. A quote from the piece at Right Wing News:

To put it bluntly, for every Paris Hilton in the world there is a Bill Gates and a Steve Jobs who rose to the top because of their brains, hard work and ability to innovate.

This will anger a lot of the class warfare people who are likely union supporters and subscribe to John Edwards' "two Americas" theory, but those people are mostly angry because nobody wants to believe that their lack of fulfillment with their lives is their own fault. It's always easier to blame some invisible, anonymous conspiracy.

I do not happen to believe that wealth=life fulfillment, but for many folks it seems to be a big part of it - and it's a free country. Whole thing here.  And my recent related piece, Love the Prosperous.

Photo: A smart rich person

From A Jacksonian's Three Organizations, One Quagmire:

By not having a conscript military, the US invests its time and energy on those volunteering to take up military work as a profession. That is not understood as a profession by the other professional classes in America, and those classes tend to devolve military work as 'shooting and killing' only. That does happen, yes, and military conflict requires that the wilingness to counter an enemy with brutal means must be done for survival of one's own forces and to reach the goals of the Nation in such a conflict. Denigration of all other professional classes, but particularly in academia, has lowered the ability of the US population to understand military work and how it works. Without knowing the why it is done the way it is, and how things are achieved not just by killing, nearly an entire generation of Americans are left with very little concept of the utility and necessity of military power.

A reposting of Bruce Thornton's 2004 essay of the above title. A quote:

If Judeo-Christian belief is so central to the ideals that created our government in the first place—if, as de Tocqueville wrote, "Freedom sees religion as the companion of its struggles and triumphs, the cradle of its infancy, and the divine source of its rights"—then the current anti-Christian fundamentalism strikes at the root of our political order. For if we are, as the secularists tell us, mere material creatures bound to one another only by contractual relations to be dissolved or altered at will, then what will provide the basis for all those selfless actions and emotions that any community depends on for its cohesion, and that keep freedom from degenerating into mere license, the power to do and consume whatever gratifies our selfish will and appetites? Where will fundamental values come from, all those beliefs that bind us into a community, and that we are willing to die and kill for, not because they have been scientifically proven but because we believe passionately that they are right and true and will benefit the greatest number of people?

The secularists have failed to provide an alternative for the religion that they have discarded. Into this vacuum has rushed any number of pseudo-religions, from Marxism to scientism to environmentalism, that are infinitely more irrational and mischievous than traditional Christianity. Yet this secularism is the creed dominating the schools, one more dogmatic, more intolerant of dissent, and more prone to self-righteous hypocrisy—in short, more fundamentalist than the beliefs of most Christians. For those concerned about the dangers of religion to our political life, then, look to these creeds, which are passed off as the fruits of science and reason, rather than to a Christianity that has been banished from the political culture it helped to create.

The whole essay here.

Roberts at Cafe Hayek had an intriguing (at least for us who are only marginally economically  literate) piece on the limits of measurement, and the abuse of measurement, in economics. It's titled Fooling Ourselves. One quote:

...how many (other) studies can you think of where someone staked out a controversial position and convinced the skeptics based on empirical analysis? I think it can be done, but it's rare. And in today's world, most of the interesting empirical claims are being made in cases where  the data are too incomplete and the issue is so complex that we can't move to a consensus. The empirical work doesn't improve our understanding of what's going on. It masks what's going on. It gives a patina of science when in effect the numbers aren't really informing the debate.

The whole short piece is here.

Indeed, the fact that something is measurable does not render it meaningful, and not everything that is meaningful is measurable.

Economics is, of course, a "social science" and not hard science. We recently posted Data Mining and Junk Science in which we discuss some of the limits and misuses of the harder sciences.

Scientists know that all data is provisional and deserves skepticism, that most theories have a finite life span, and that capital "T" Truth is more of a metaphysical or religious concept than it is the subject of math and science.

Photo: Those of us who are my age remember these nifty tools well. To the youngsters: that is a slide rule.

Few of us, especially as we grow older, are entirely comfortable with the idea that life is full of sound and fury but signifies nothing. However much philosophers tell us that it is illogical to fear death, and that at worst it is only the process of dying that we should fear, people still fear death as much as ever. In like fashion, however many times philosophers say that it is up to us ourselves, and to no one else, to find the meaning of life, we continue to long for a transcendent purpose immanent in existence itself, independent of our own wills. To tell us that we should not feel this longing is a bit like telling someone in the first flush of love that the object of his affections is not worthy of them. The heart hath its reasons that reason knows not of.

Of course, men—that is to say, some men—have denied this truth ever since the Enlightenment, and have sought to find a way of life based entirely on reason. Far as I am from decrying reason, the attempt leads at best to Gradgrind and at worst to Stalin. Reason can never be the absolute dictator of man’s mental or moral economy.

The search for the pure guiding light of reason, uncontaminated by human passion or metaphysical principles that go beyond all possible evidence, continues, however; and recently, an epidemic rash of books has declared success, at least if success consists of having slain the inveterate enemy of reason, namely religion. The philosophers Daniel Dennett, A. C. Grayling, Michel Onfray, and Sam Harris, biologist Richard Dawkins, and journalist and critic Christopher Hitchens have all written books roundly condemning religion and its works. Evidently, there is a tide in the affairs, if not of men, at least of authors.

The curious thing about these books is that the authors often appear to think that they are saying something new and brave. They imagine themselves to be like the intrepid explorer Sir Richard Burton, who in 1853 disguised himself as a Muslim merchant, went to Mecca, and then wrote a book about his unprecedented feat. The public appears to agree, for the neo-atheist books have sold by the hundred thousand. Yet with the possible exception of Dennett’s, they advance no argument that I, the village atheist, could not have made by the age of 14 (Saint Anselm’s ontological argument for God’s existence gave me the greatest difficulty, but I had taken Hume to heart on the weakness of the argument from design).

Read the whole thing. Having read many reviews of these books (but not the books), it is my impression that they have a rebellious rather than inquiring tone, a lack of interest in metaphysics (which I happen to believe is the highest expression of the human mind and soul), and a religious-like reverence for human "reason" - however that might be defined.

I am not being facetious. Law, like Medicine, is designed for the obsessional, exacting brain.

For example, read noted corporate law prof Bainbridge on the subject of corporate social responsibility. Fun stuff. He takes issue with populist nonsense about corporate function.

At the bird feeder today:

Blue Jay, Cardinal, Song Sparrow, Tree Sparrow, Chipping Sparrow, WT Sparrow, House Finch, English Sparrow, Red Wing Blackbird (a bonded, loving pair - they are usually in flocks during migration), WB Nuthatch, Mourning Dove, SC Junco (first of the season), Goldfinch, BC Chickadee (in photo).

In response to the piece we linked at Protein about Robert Reich and the Left's age-old desire to steal wealth, I reply "Appreciate and thank the wealthy, and provide a safety net for the unfortunate."

We have written about poverty in America several times. The prosperous are a precious thing, and we have tons of them in America. The more, the better. I know that not everyone pursues prosperity: many pursue other goals instead. But the more wealthy people we have, the better.

Wealthy people do not ask the government (meaning their neighbors) for stuff, they live independent lives, they donate time and money to charities, they tend to be civic-minded and grateful, they "ask not what America can do" for them, they educate their kids, they spend money and keep the retail economy rolling, they invest in businesses which grow and create jobs, etc etc.

Without the estate tax, we would have many more wealthy in America than we have now. And if more people had good old Yankee thrift and the backbone to resist every temptation, we'd have even more wealthy people. Wealth is not the most important thing in life, but private assets are the foundation of being a Free Man or Woman.

The goal of American policies should be to help create as many wealthy people and families as possible.

Coming up at dawn, battalion executive officer Major Odell M. Conoley first discovered the answer to our question: How many able-bodied Marines does it take to hold a hill against two regiments of motivated, combat-hardened infantrymen who have never known defeat?

On a hill where the bodies were piled like cordwood, Mitchell Paige alone sat upright behind his 30-caliber Browning, waiting to see what the dawn would bring.

One hill: one Marine.

Guadalcanal. Read the whole thing. h/t, Small Dead Pangolins

We believe that an unarmed home is a potentially dangerous place. As with fire insurance, you just hope you'll never need to use it. 

"Shoot first" laws are growing in the US, making life tougher for bad guys.

However, Bruce notes that some people would prefer being victims. I think that is the height of irresponsibility: protecting yourself and your family is the most basic duty in life.

The road to the Total State:

...my view is that we in the west are already well on the way to a new form of post-modern totalitarian state (what Guy Herbert calls 'soft fascism') in which behaviour and opinions which are disapproved of by the political class are pathologised and then regulated by violence backed laws "for your own good'' or "for the children" or "for the environment".

Whole brief post at Sami. I agree.

This is what governments always tend towards, and it must be resisted by proud, strong free men and women before we all become serfs of The State. If you think that is hyperbole, then just watch, say nothing, and do nothing.

The "political class" isn't wise - it's crafty and smart, but fundamentally rendered insane by power. It is a governmental disease, akin to alcoholism, and it seems to be universal. Our Founders feared this, predicted it, and made valiant efforts to prevent it.

People who renounce power over others too rarely go into government.

From Cheryl Miller's Claremont review of Edith Wharton by Hermione Lee (h/t, No Left Turns):

Edith Wharton, the massive new biography by Oxford English professor Hermione Lee, is the story of success: how Lee's formidable heroine survived a painful childhood, a disastrous marriage, an only slightly less disastrous love affair, repeated bouts of depression and illness, and the German occupation. Through it all, Wharton remained unflappable. Just two months before her death, she paid a visit to a friend and collaborator, the architect Ogden Codman, to discuss a new edition of their The Decoration of Houses- (one of Wharton's 48 books). "Everyone was on jump all the time," Codman complained of his frail but nevertheless commanding guest. Only a few days after she arrived, Wharton suffered a heart attack. As she was carried into the ambulance, she admonished her host: "This will teach you not to ask decrepit old ladies to stay."

Read the whole thing.

You can visit Wharton's recently-restored Berkshire home and gardens, "The Mount," in lovely and civilized Lenox, MA. Been there. It's not too far from Maggie's Farm. A friend helped raise the money for the restoration, and they did a good job with it. They duplicated her formal garden designs.

What are you doing today? Heavy rain here, so the Mrs. and I eschewed our usual Saturday morning horse fun and are making enough mincemeat for 8-12 pies, using Grandma Myers' recipe but doubling it and backing off on the sugar a bit: I do not care for an overly-sweet pie of any sort. I am adding dried cranberries and dried currants, and I am using Canada Goose and beef because I have no venison this year: it's been too warm to hang one, so it makes no sense to shoot one. I will age the mixture until close to Thanksgiving. I used rum in it last year, brandy this year. Also, to sip a little for a bracing brunch while cooking and chopping meat, suet, and apples.

I am, at the same time, making my special beef bourguignon for dinner, so the kitchen smells of spices, molasses, raisins, vinegar, apples, wine, brandy, bacon, and cooking meat. The smell is a hearty meal in itself.

When people talk about being guided by science, I get the creeps. It gives me the same sort of creeps that Utilitarianism does. It has overtones of "scientific socialism," for me, and Brave New World.

"Science" is amoral. Facts are amoral. Pure reason is amoral.

Prof. Deneen agrees.