Oh yeah!?!! Come at me, see what happens...

Just had the following via that aptly named app.

@RobertH1946 That should be evident from everything I've written for the last fifteen years. Try to keep up.

— Hilary White (@Hilarityjane66) June 22, 2014

~

Oh yeah? Tolerate this!

~


This just in:

Augusta State ordered Keeton to undergo a re-education plan, in which she must attend “diversity sensitivity training,” complete additional remedial reading, and write papers to describe their impact on her beliefs. If she does not change her beliefs or agree to the plan, the university says it will expel her from the Counselor Education Program.

There must be something wrong with me. Something genetic that triggers that fight response before the rest of my brain has a chance to say "flee".

I saw this and the first thing I thought was, "Papers on their impact?" A golden opportunity to cut them to ribbons.

Or maybe, I'd cut a deal with them. You take the Catholic apologetics courses offered at somewhere like, say, Christendom or TAC, and I'll take your diversity training, and we'll see who survives with their beliefs intact.

So many opportunities wasted on righteous indignation.



~

"Certainty admits of no degrees"

Certainty admits of no degrees. Doubt may; but certainty excludes doubt and all its gradations.

To be moderate, cautious, forbearing, self-mistrusting, and considerate of opponents in all doubtful matters, is a virtue; but in matters that are certain, to fail in saying that they are so, is to betray the truth.

To treat certainties as uncertainties in mathematics is not intellectual, in revelation is unbelief. The only moderation possible in matters of theological certainty is to speak the truth in charity ...

to diminish the precision of truths which are certain, or to suffer them to be treated as dubious, or to veil them by economies, or to modify them to meet the prejudices of men or the traditions of public opinion is not moderation, but an infidelity to the truth, and an immoderate fear, or an immoderate respect for some human authority.

Henry Cardinal Manning

When accused of being "uncharitable"

it is sometimes helpful to trot out the Doctors:

“He who is not angry, whereas he has cause to be, sins. For unreasonable patience is the hotbed of many vices, it fosters negligence, and incites not only the wicked but the good to do wrong.” St. John Chrysostom

And St. Jerome:

Writing to Saint Augustine: "Well done! You are famous throughout the world. Catholics revere you and point you out as the establisher of the old-time faith; and -- an even greater glory -- all heretics hate you. And they hate me too; unable to slay us with the sword, they would that wishes could kill."

Writing to Rufinus: "There is one point in which I cannot agree with you: you ask me to spare heretics -- or, in other words -- not to prove myself a Catholic."

Don't play along.

Fight.

Fighting is the Christian thing to do.

I think that is the whole gist of this blog, and what I have been doing with my life for ten years.

Fight. Don't take it lying down. Don't take it on the chin. And never mind that other cheek.

Tell the apocalypse, "Oh yeah? come over here and say that!"

There is something about having Irish blood. During a little personal contretemps recently, a good friend here who knows me very well indeed, and who was trying to defuse things, said, "Hilary, everyone has the fight or flight response, but in you, it seems to be a little more weighted towards fight than flight."

Yeah. I guess so. What's your point?

Here is something I wrote a while ago about not giving in that I thought was worth saying again.

Several years ago, I went through a phase of reading the Greeks. I ploughed through the Odyssey and then went systematically through the plays that dealt with the aftermath of the Trojan war, the pivot around which almost all Greek literature revolves. I remember quite distinctly coming away with the impression that the very worst thing that could happen to you is to be noticed by the horrible, fickle and perverse Greek gods. It never goes well.

If Apollo hates you, you're toast. If he falls in love with you, some other god will become jealous and...toast again. Even if no one else gets upset, and you happen to fancy the village blacksmith instead of the god...you guessed it...toast. Even if some other god comes along and tries to rescue you. Look what happened to poor old Daphne. A tree!? That's the best he could do?

The theme "You can't win" is the guiding principle in Greek thought, pagan fatalism. Once you are noticed by the gods, you're toast. It was the thing that finally put me off any sort of modern revival of paganism. It isn't all sipping absinthe and dancing around trees to Enya CDs.

The whole mindset is alien to me. Gods shouldn't do bad things and problems ought to be solvable. There ought not to be traps like these and I'm infuriated when people just shrug and say, "what can you do?"

I'll tell you what you can bloody well do!

Take the case of Iphigenia, the daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, sister to Orestes. Now there's a disaster that everyone always thinks was "fate". Inescapable. But the solution was perfectly obvious to me, a Christian and a fighty white Westerner.

Agamemnon (who in this production was not played by Sean Connery) wants to go to war with Troy. This has Artemis quite annoyed because she heard Agamemnon, after shooting a deer, boasting about how he's a better hunter even than the gods, and she has raised a lot of storms and things to prevent the fleet from setting out. He asks his soothsayers what to do and they say, sacrifice Iphigenia to the goddess.

OK, right there, Agamemnon had a chance to do the right thing, but, being a pagan fatalist, he blew it.

So he kills his daughter, the storms drop and he sails happily off into legend. But the string of events leads to disaster after disaster. He comes home, Cassandra in tow, to be greeted ten years later by a still furious Clytemnestra who murders him and poor old Cassandra (who has, herself, annoyed Apollo, if I recall, who cursed her with the worst thing I can imagine as a blogger,) and triumphs over his blood in a most grisly and exciting way. Orestes, the good son, and also an idiot, hears this and decides that in order to avenge his father he must murder his mother... which he duly accomplishes, thus incurring the wrath of the furies who pursue him to his miserable end.

UGh.!

Who spotted the flaw in all this?

The one thing that could have been done right from the start that would have solved everything?

No?

It's obvious.

Kill the soothsayers.

Don't play along.

The gods are thugs. The gods are fascists. Don't grant them the moral authority. Don't be a dhimmi.

There's no such thing as fate. Fate is pagan nonsense and it's another way in which the CHRC and all their little minions, friends and relations, are opposed to the stoic manly Christian virtues. They expect everyone to just shrug, say, "it's the will of the gods" and sacrifice Iphigenia.

DO NOT sacrifice Iphigenia.

Kill the effing soothsayers and go to war anyway.

don't play along.

Bit like an ice cream cone then

What they say about revenge is also true about plain old victory.

Sweet and ice cold.

Oooo I'm just so offended!

Here's a funny little item:

Pope Benedict has yet to say anything I agree with. I don't think rock music is the spawn of the devil; it seemed to me barmy to take back into the church the bishop who had denied the Holocaust; and I wouldn't dream of taking contraceptive advice from a bachelor in his seventies. But then I'm not a Catholic. The Pope, it transpires, is. Deal with it.

From Britain no less.

And it reminds me of something. Pope Benedict, and by extension the Catholic Church in general, has been suffering in the last few weeks from nothing more than (what I shall now in my 'blogger omnipotence dub) Commbox Whine. Commbox whiners are those who get into your commbox and say, "I cruise around the internet all the time and visit all kinds of blogs but yours is always the one I find most offensive. Why are you so mean?..." The only proper repose to which is, "Then don't come here."

What the Pope needs to say is "This is the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church has always believed these things, will always believe these things and will not fail to continue saying them out loud. If you don't like it, change the channel."

This is what bugs me about all this self-righteous indignation on the left. It's disingenuous and a sign that they don't really believe what they say.

No one is holding a gun to their heads and forcing them to go to Mass. Likewise, the Pope has no more power to make anyone do or not do anything but that of the force of the truth of what he says. Ignore it and carry on as you like; no one has the power to stop you. The fact that they are constantly up in arms about what he says but does not have the power to enforce, might...just might indicate that they feel, deep in the bottom of their shriveled, withered little souls, that he is right. If they really had the courage of what they obviously take for convictions, they would just shrug. The fact that they invariably start foaming at the mouth whenever he speaks might be, to the casual observer, an indication of a lack of total confidence in their opinions.

I'm just sayin' is all..."

More:

When is a crowd of a million fans, fainting in the heat and being trampled to death in excitement, a sign of unpopularity? When you are Pope Benedict XVI, that's when. Despite the fact that his week-long tour of the African continent has been playing to record numbers, the Pontiff has had nothing but criticism from the First World press. He's a "disaster", he's "out of touch with the real world", his whole operation needs "a radical shake-up".

The failures, according to his critics, lie both in his medium and his message. The present Vatican has yet to come to terms with the worldwide, 24-hour blogosphere. The press office shuts up shop for the day at three in the afternoon. No one there has got to grips with Google. Stories leap out at strange times of the day and night, and they hadn't seen any of them coming. Bless… but who can blame them? It's a rum old world in which Jade Goody reaches near-sanctification for her telepathic relationship with the media and the Pope gets rubbished because he's baffled by it.

His message that Aids "cannot be overcome through the distribution of condoms, which can even aggravate the problem" has infuriated health workers the world over. But what exactly is a Pope for? Is he there to make public service announcements in accordance with current scientific thinking, or is he there to stick up for what his Church has long believed in? The relationship between Catholics and condoms was strained long before Benedict XVI got the job. Millions of Catholic couples take the independent decision to practise contraception, but that is no reason for the Pope to change what he preaches. It is absurd even to expect him to move with the times. He's a religious leader, not an interior decorator.

...then she kind of starts blithering incoherently, but it was good up to then.

Fight! Fight!

So, the Post says, "No no! It's not like that at all!

Those crazy anti-choice extremists have got it all wrong! It's all about giving the mother a chance to hold her precious infant for five minutes before it expires. But you know what these nutjobs are like, why, they're even against euthanasia for heaven sake!

Eugenic abortion! why do they always have to use such nasty words?!

Why, there simply can't be anything wrong with it. We have a bishop and an ethics expert telling us it's fine...

Juuuuuust fine."

Yah. Tell it to this woman.

Welcome Shaidlettes

Thanks for the link Kathy.

Now I want everyone to go over to Shaidle is a Racist and post a comment.


Update: Man I haven't had a commbox dustup in ages! Forgot how fun it is to shoot fish in a barrel. Almost as fun as tripping blind people and kicking Gypsy beggars.

and...

WooHoo! Watch that sitemeter FLY!

Speaking of Irish fightyness

Flogging Molly

In Case You're Wondering What to Do When the Day Comes

When they kick out your front door
How you gonna come?
With your hands on your head
Or on the trigger of your gun

When the law break in
How you gonna go?
Shot down on the pavement
Or waiting in death row

You can crush us
You can bruise us
But you'll have to answer to
Oh, Guns of Brixton

The money feels good
And your life you like it well
But surely your time will come
As in heaven, as in hell

You see, he feels like Ivan
BORN under the Brixton sun
His game is called survivin'
At the end of the harder they come

You know it means no mercy
They caught him with a gun
No need for the Black Maria
Goodbye to the Brixton sun

You can crush us
You can bruise us
But you'll have to answer to
Oh-the guns of Brixton

When they kick out your front door
How you gonna come?
With your hands on your head
Or on the trigger of your gun

You can crush us
You can bruise us
And even shoot us
But oh- the guns of Brixton

Shot down on the pavement
Waiting in death row
His game was survivin'
As in heaven as in hell

You can crush us
You can bruise us
But you'll have to answer to
Oh, the guns of Brixton
Oh, the guns of Brixton
Oh, the guns of Brixton
Oh, the guns of Brixton
Oh, the guns of Brixton

advice

he adds...

To the Chattering Pinkopagans and the Multicult Twits I say:

The next time you're planning to enjoy the colourful tapestry of state-imposed multiculturalism, by picking up a curry and attending some weird diversity parade (or whatever it is you do) for a change, why not taste the rich flavour of conservatism?

Buy a gun. Say what you think. Pray.

Celebrate a little diversity, you closed-minded nitwits.

Birds of a feather

screeching together.

Mr. Carriere points out that lefties/commies and Islams (and I'm inclined to add, certain shrill hysterical harridans in a particular group of persons in Parliament who shall, for today anyway, remain nameless) have one thing in common: an inability to grasp the finer points of intellectual debate. Irony, to be specific.

For his bestseller, Mark Steyn...

"can thank a handful of Muslim goofballs who can't quite grasp that trying to censor an author who claims Muslims in western countries aren't embracing western traditions of individual liberty is perhaps not the most effective rebuttal of the author's thesis".

Quite so.