COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Sunday, December 24, 2017

The Magnificence of Western Civilization



The Power and Purpose of Western Civilization

Thursday, 07 December 2017

Far away and cold beyond cold. The words do not do the reality justice in describing the state of the Voyager 1 spacecraft hurtling outward into the galaxy. The furthest man-made object from our warm, watery world, its now antique instrumentation peers back to its origin, and in the lens of its camera, that origin is merely a speck. Forward, into the great void beyond the planets, the little probe hurtles, an infinity awaiting it.

Voyager 1 is mankind’s first interstellar spacecraft, something that, when stated in such terms, seems a matter only of science fiction, rather than science fact. Yet, the truth remains: In 1977, the United States, the wealthiest and most technologically advanced nation in history, built and launched the very first interstellar spacecraft. In fact, it launched a pair of them. Like Voyager 1, Voyager 2 is exiting the solar system. In 300,000 years, it will pass the great star Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky.

For the Voyagers, eternity is the future, and for that eternity they will represent the greatest achievement, to this point in any case, of a great civilization of epochal importance. The Voyagers were created by technological means derived from the epistemological practice of science, a means of interrogating the material world and increasing our understanding of it. But science itself is predicated on a whole host of other civilizational characteristics, all of which coalesced in what was once known as “Christendom” and has, more recently, come to be known as Western Civilization.

Today, that civilization is under increasing pressure. It is derided, even hated, in some quarters. The derision is unjustified, and even dangerous, for Western Civilization has almost single-handedly made the modern world; given us our technology; elevated mankind from intellectual darkness and slavery of body, mind, and soul; and provided a platform for a future of limitless hopes and possibilities.

Unique to Creation
Unique in its achievements as compared to other mere human-scale activity, the greatness of Western Civilization is only truly appreciated when its inconceivable rarity is understood. That rarity has to be set against the entire background of creation. Not only within the vast extent of our own solar system, but of the entire cosmos, there is no other sign of life, let alone any evidence of some other, alien, civilization.

This is despite the fervent desires of many, who, perhaps fearful of a terrifying existential loneliness, hope for the discovery of some shred of life anywhere. Modern hope for this discovery reaches back to the mid-20th century and famed astronomer Frank Drake. While working at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Green Bank, West Virginia, in 1961, Drake first presented what has come to be known as the “Drake Equation,” which has been used ever since to estimate the likely number of advanced civilizations in the galaxy.

The Drake Equation takes into account a number of factors, including how often stars suitable for life are formed, the fraction of those stars that actually have planets, the number of planets per such solar system that might have life-sustaining environments, the fraction of those on which life actually appears, a further fraction on which civilizations exist with the ability to develop technology that can be detected from space, and the length of time over which those civilizations release signs of their existence into space.

The most famous solution for the Drake Equation has long been that offered by astronomer Carl Sagan.

“When we do the arithmetic,” an optimistic Sagan wrote, “the number that my colleagues and I come up with is around a million technical civilizations in our Galaxy alone. That is a breathtakingly large number, and it is exhilarating to imagine the diversity, lifestyles and commerce of those million worlds.”
The fly in the ointment of this optimistic conclusion is something known as the Fermi Paradox. About a decade before Drake came up with his equation, commonly accepted lore has it, famed physicist Enrico Fermi realized that a sufficiently advanced civilization would be able to colonize the galaxy, and would thus be detectable. As explained by the SETI Institute:
Fermi realized that any civilization with a modest amount of rocket technology and an immodest amount of imperial incentive could rapidly colonize the entire Galaxy. Within ten million years, every star system could be brought under the wing of empire. Ten million years may sound long, but in fact it’s quite short compared with the age of the Galaxy, which is roughly ten thousand million years. Colonization of the Milky Way should be a quick exercise.

So what Fermi immediately realized was that the aliens have had more than enough time to pepper the Galaxy with their presence. But looking around, he didn’t see any clear indication that they’re out and about. This prompted Fermi to ask what was (to him) an obvious question: “where is everybody?”

Now, Fermi never really formulated his eponymous paradox quite that thoroughly. As Robert H. Gray pointed out for Scientific American, it’s much more accurate to attribute the thinking behind the Fermi Paradox to astronomer Michael Hart and physicist Frank Tipler. Still, despite finding significant numbers of exoplanets orbiting stars outside our own solar system, we seem to be confirming not Sagan’s optimism, but the pessimism of the Fermi Paradox realization that there is no other civilization out there. Moreover, there might not even be other, simpler forms of life.

Our own remarkable little planet might be the only redoubt of life anywhere in the universe. On that point, Peter D. Ward, professor of geological sciences at the University of Washington and his colleague, University of Washington, Astronomy Professor David Brownlee, penned the book Rare Earth in 2000, pointing out the many startlingly rare factors that had to coalesce in order to make our small planet capable of hosting complex forms of life. They concluded that “it appears that Earth indeed may be extraordinarily rare.”

Just how rare, exactly, is difficult to know. We can’t see everything in the galaxy, much less the universe. But what we can see hasn’t provided any reason to lean toward Sagan-like optimism in a profusion of alien life. Just the opposite, in fact. It seems that the conditions required for life, and especially for intelligent life of the human sort, are astronomically rare. Commenting on this conclusion for the Washington Post in 2016, Harvard University astrophysicist Howard A. Smith noted:
The bottom line for extraterrestrial intelligence is that it is probably rarer than previously imagined, a conclusion called the misanthropic principle. For all intents and purposes, we could be alone in our cosmic neighborhood, and if we expand the volume of our search we will have to wait even longer to find out. Life might be common in the very distant universe — or it might not be — and we are unlikely to know. We are probably rare — and it seems likely we will be alone for eons. This is the second piece of new evidence that we are not ordinary.
Smith concludes with the exhortation that we “acknowledge the compelling evidence to date that humanity and our home planet, Earth, are rare and cosmically precious.”

“And may we act accordingly,” he advises. Indeed, as far as our current scientific capabilities inform us, there is nothing like human intelligence anywhere else in the universe. The greatest outcome of that intelligence has been Western Civilization.

From Family to Civilization
Alone on our planet among the cosmic wilderness, the individual human can never live alone, and is never fully self-reliant. From birth, the child, alone, faces a near certainty of a quick death. An infant has no physical defense against the myriad terrors it faces. The helpless child has no ability to eat or drink on its own, cannot provide for itself shelter from the heat or the cold, from the rain, wind, or snow.

Family, the mother and father, provide for the needs of the child. Yet for the most robust health, growth, and success, this core family benefits from the extended help and care offered by grandparents, aunts, and uncles. More, cousins add to the increasingly rich and varied life and experience of the family. And each of these has outward connections, friendships, and ultimately marriages with others beyond the core family, creating a community. In this community grows a commonality of thought, practice, and belief, a rising of modes of living, codes of conduct, and a sharing of knowledge. Tastes and preferences are formed. Writ large, a village arises, then a town, a city, a nation. And over this aggregate a culture. As this culture carries itself forward, from one generation to the next, it becomes something more: a civilization. Finally, said the great historians Will and Ariel Durant, “It is the civilization that makes the people: circumstances geographical, economic, and political create a culture, and the culture creates a human type.”

But culture can change as circumstances change. Historically, war and conquest have laid waste, ruining civilizations. Famines and diseases have erased whole cities and cultures. Sometimes, the end remains a mystery. We see today the remains of civilizations and know not what led to their downfall. What happened to the Indus Valley civilization? What happened to the Anasazi? Or, perhaps most intriguing of all given its incredible antiquity, what transpired with the Old Copper Complex people, who flourished in northern Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan nearly 8,000 years ago, mining and working copper long millennia before the pyramids of Egypt were conceived?

Heretofore, civilization has been an ephemeral thing, waxing and waning, but Western Civilization is different. Though numerous authors and respected authorities have repeatedly predicted its demise, it continues to grow in scope and influence. In his tremendous work From Dawn to Decadence, the great historian Jacques Barzun argued that “in the West the culture of the last 500 years is ending,” in a conclusion that followed Oswald Speng­ler. In his Decline of the West, Spengler argued that culture lived, then transitioned to civilization, which was then moribund and ultimately dead. “Civilizations are the most external and artificial states of which a species of developed humanity is capable,” Spengler wrote. “They are a conclusion, the thing-become succeeding the thing-becoming, death following life, rigidity following expansion.”

This was true for civilizations of the past, but it is not now true of the Western. The civilization that we now inherit has at its core certain facets that make it different than all others. They are the same facets that enabled the development of the advanced science and technology of the Voyagers and beyond, and they are the same facets that make Western Civilization more robust and enduring.

Roots of Resilience
Unlike the ossified civilizations of Speng­ler’s description, what we today call Western Civilization has unique characteristics. Where other civilizations had changeable, human-centered foundations that, once they failed to function, led to downfall and discord, the core of Western Civilization is based on the Decalogue (i.e., the Ten Commandments). Whether one is religious in the Judeo-Christian faith tradition or not, these remain both legal and moral truisms and the essential means of ordering and limiting authority in society.

Consider the first four commandments. These not only provide a framework for the proper orientation of mankind to God, but also set the framework for the proper power relationship within human society. “Thou shalt not have strange gods before me,” God proclaims in the First Commandment, and this is normally taken as a prohibition against worshipping the pantheon of innumerable pagan gods and goddesses that haunted the mind of the ancient world. Yet, it is similarly a prohibition against worshipping the false gods that mankind would raise, most notably and commonly the false god of government as represented in the era of the Roman Empire by whichever Caesar had donned the purple.

So we find that the early Christian martyrs would not worship Caesar, even on pain of torture and death. The earliest account of such a martyrdom to reach us is that of Saint Polycarp, martyred, most agree, in 155 A.D. In the letter from the church in Smyrna where Polycarp was bishop that recounts his death, we learn that the Roman authorities met him after his arrest “and taking him up into the chariot, they seated themselves beside him, and endeavoured to persuade him, saying, ‘What harm is there in saying, Lord Caesar, and in sacrificing, with the other ceremonies observed on such occasions, and so make sure of safety?’” Refusing, Polycarp was led to the stadium, where a crowd had assembled to watch his death. Again, the Roman authorities demanded he renounce Christ in favor of Caesar. To this Polycarp refused, replying: “Eighty and six years have I served Him, and He never did me any injury: how then can I blaspheme my King and my Saviour?” After this, he was to be bound and burned alive, but when he was not consumed by the flames, he was stabbed to death. This, his reward for adhering to Christ and the First Commandment against the false god of government.
In Saint Polycarp’s martyrdom, we see devotion to Christ and Scripture, and an indictment of government as a totalitarian institution. Within the heart of Western Civilization is the legal truism that totalitarian government is illegitimate, a recognition that is carried down to the very foundation of the American Republic. When Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal ... with certain unalienable rights,” he was acknowledging that no government could usurp the role of God and abridge those rights. This is the First Commandment in action.

Similarly, the other commandments order the good relation of person to person in a complex society. Thou shalt not kill is a protection of the inviolable personal right to live. Thou shalt not steal is a protection for private property. Though shalt not bear false witness is the moral foundation of contract. That such truisms have a solid universality is evident in that, so many millennia after they were delivered to Moses, they continue to be so obviously relevant and practical.

Extended, emphasized, and refined by Christ through His salvific mission and His establishment of the Christian church that carried the Word of God to the European world, and then worldwide, the Judeo-Christian ethical and theological tradition protected and nurtured the revolutionary ideal of individual value, and of the possibility and desirability of individual rights and actions.

Emerging and arising from this was the modern economic foundation of Western civilization. If individuals could have a legitimate ability to maintain their own lives even against the state and to keep the product of their labor, in the sense of owning property, to the point that it could be stolen from them by neither taxmen nor highwaymen, then could arise an impetus for creative initiative and voluntary exchange. “The experience of the past leaves little doubt that every economic system must sooner or later rely upon some form of the profit motive to stir individuals and groups to productivity,” noted Will and Ariel Durant in their little text on The Lessons of History. “Substitutes like slavery, police supervision, or ideological enthusiasm prove too unproductive, too expensive, or too transient.”
This played no small part in the rising prosperity of the 12th and 13th centuries in Europe that saw the end of what is often incorrectly referred to as a Dark Age. Importantly, as historian David Hackett Fisher points out in The Great Wave, his 1996 study of economic and monetary history from the 12th century to the present, 800 years ago Europe experienced an age of diffuse political power and rising industry and commercial exchange.

Politically, Fisher notes, “The twelfth century in Europe was marked by the simultaneous development of monarchy, aristocracy and popular government in open and pluralistic systems that were unique to the Western world. Power was broadly distributed among kings, clergy, nobles and commons.” A greater dispersion of power necessarily makes it likewise more diffuse and less of a threat to individual liberties.

Not surprisingly, then, during an era of more diffuse power, coupled with a decrease in war and violence, peaceful trade and commerce expanded, as did the population. “Families, cities, markets, gilds, and fairs multiplied everywhere in Europe,” Fisher points out. “Centers of commerce and industry grew at a great rate.... The economy of medieval Europe rapidly developed from a comparatively primitive system of barter exchange toward a more complex system of market relationships.”

The great symbols of what was then an opulence and wealth that hadn’t been experienced since the height of Rome’s power some thousand years earlier were the magnificent cathedrals erected during the age. These include Chartres, Reims, Strasbourg, Sienna, and Lincoln Cathedral in England, among many other examples.

The 12th-century Renaissance, the commercial practices it fostered, and the renewed impetus it gave to science through the intellectual efforts added to the immense labor and artistry that brought the great cathedrals into being laid the groundwork for the even greater Renaissance to come in 14th- and 15th-century Italy.

This came about under the most improbable circumstances. In the early 14th century, the great plague swept through Europe, killing by some estimates a third of the population. On the back of this catastrophe, the economy faltered and political instability grew. Amazingly, even against this backdrop, the growth of Western Civilization continued and flowered brilliantly in the fiercely independent city-states of the Italian peninsula.

Chief among these were the city-states of Venice and Florence. Here commerce and trade expanded, experiments with republican forms of government flourished, and the first brilliant stirrings of science, art, literature, and historical inquiry set Western Civilization on an arrow-straight course to our modern world. From this period we have such luminaries as Michelangelo, Leonardo, Brunelleschi, Donatello, and Raphael, to name but a few in art. In literature and historical inquiry, we find Francesco Petrarch bursting onto the scene, following Dante, and accompanied by Machiavelli and Giovanni Boccaccio, again to name but a few. Significantly, in terms of future developments of considerable importance, Fisher points out, during the early decades of the 15th century, leading thinkers “such as Leonardo Bruni, Coluccio Salutati and Poggio Bracciolini produced a literature which celebrated republican virtue, the rule of law, and the power of reason.” Connected to this, in science, we have a growing understanding of matters in optics, symmetry, and perspective that informed the magnificent art of the period; developments in pigments used in painting that presaged, along with the striving of the alchemists, the coming of the science of chemistry; and, in the overlap of art with science, the unequaled genius of Leonardo and the engineering brilliance of Brunelleschi, whose great dome over Florence’s Santa Maria del Fiore astonishes now as it did then as the largest brick dome ever constructed.

It is in commerce that we find the most direct evidence that individual freedom and property rights spur creativity and prosperity. In his study of the age entitled Renaissance Florence, historian Gene A. Brucker observed:
The tempo and direction of the business activity of the Florentine mercantile community was constantly changing, according to inclination, opportunity, and circumstance. A merchant might temporarily abandon his moneychanging table in the Mercato Vecchio to invest his capital in foreign trade. Or he might decide to withdraw from the manufacture of woolen cloth to concentrate on the more profitable production of silk.... Rarely were the economic interests of Florentine merchants ... fixed irrevocably. The business world was in constant flux.
All of these developments — commercial, scientific, cultural, and many more — were direct outgrowths of the essential core of Western Civilization that recognized the value of the individual and encouraged individual creative activity in concert and partnership with others. In no other civilization had this been explicitly acknowledged, protected, and revered.

Vitality and Flexibility
Again and again, crisis follows periods of expansion and growth. But Western Civilization, by virtue of its theological and moral insistence on the innate value of the individual as a creation of the Divine, has, through that insistence, an ability to learn, adapt, and absorb. As a result, unlike Spengler’s other civilizations that were stultified endpoints, Western Civilization endures and grows.

Following immediately on the heels of the Renaissance, European civilization embarked on the age of exploration, when the Atlantic nations superseded those that had thrived along the coast of the Mediterranean. A steady stream of bold mariners followed the path of Columbus into the trackless, watery wastes.
Broadly, there were two results of the new age of exploration, if viewed from the wide-angle perspective of civilization. First, the smaller, less sophisticated civilizations of the new world were largely unable to cope with the challenges presented by the incandescent vitality of Western Civilization. While they withered over the succeeding centuries, Western Civilization prospered.

This article appears in the December 18, 2017, issue of The New American. To download the issue and continue reading this story, or to subscribe, click here.

33 comments:

  1. "If they be inhabited what a scope for folly, if not what an immense waste of space !"

    European pessimist whose name escapes me.

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    1. Is That A Sleigh With Eight Reindeer Overhead ?.....No, It's A UFO

      See: Hot Air

      Quirk knows the unspeakable truth...... after his flight into Area 51 he was a changed man forever, humble and often muttering to himself....

      Delete
    2. Quirk has been to Area that 51 twice once getting his ass shot down by an F16, his Ultra Light The Penetrator.

      But he made a second mission unknown to any but his most trusted inner circle.

      The vehicle was another Ultra Light, The Qufo, and the mission was wildly successful, yielding photographic proof of dead, and living, aliens, and UFOs of various configuration.

      It was after this mission that Quirk became withdrawn, speaking little but often muttering to himself.

      After the first mission he went to Vegas for the hookers, drink and gambling, and to heal body and soul.

      This last phase lasted more than 10 months.

      Delete
    3. "The alloys, the alloys" Quirk was often heard to mutter.

      No one could understand what this might mean, and when pressed Quirk would run away like a frightened child.

      Delete
  2. I submit that the Copper Complex folk were Solutreans who got wiped out by the Johnny come lately "Native American" folk who pushed in from the West, rude, savage, murderous......

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  3. Collegium 1704 is a Czech early music orchestra and choir founded in 1991 by the Czech conductor, harpsichordist and horn player Václav Luks.

    Luks was formerly horn soloist of the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin. Although founded while Luks was a student in Plzen, the seat of the orchestra is Prague. The Collegium Vocale 1704 and Amphion Wind Octet are sister ensembles. The Collegium specializes in Baroque music, in particular that of Zelenka, Bach and Handel.

    All the performers are virtuosos, and often perform with other early music ensembles.That fabulous alto is Delphine Galou.

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  4. Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic have vowed to contribute some EUR 9 million each to support Italy in projects aiming at stopping illegal migration from Libya.



    The European Commission last week said it was taking Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary to the Court of Justice of the EU, the bloc’s top EU court, for refusing to accept migrant quotas.

    But Polish Interior Minister Mariusz BÅ‚aszczak vowed that Warsaw would not cave in to demands by Brussels, arguing that Islamic migrant communities in Europe increased the threat of terrorism.

    Just three hours after the European Commission triggered – for the first time in history – the article of an EU treaty sanctioning member governments who violate the Union’s fundamental norms, such as democracy, human rights and the rule of law, Polish President Andrzej Duda signed into law those new Polish acts that had infuriated the bloc.The reforms signed by the president are perceived as politicization of the Polish judiciary system. The sanctions imposed on Poland by the EU might lead to suspension of Poland’s voting rights in the pan-European body. Yet, ardent supporters of the PIS nationalist government ruling Poland since 2015, say it was worth it. Proud Polish political analysts are happy to announce that president’s act sent a clear sign that Poland is a sovereign state, leading independent policy, not deterred by Brussel’s radical steps.In essence, the move was the Polish version of Israel's statement that Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as its capital is worth any price to pay. In both Israel and Poland, national pride often trumps pragmatic interests.

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  5. WARSAW (Reuters) - The European Commission’s decision to launch the so-called Article 7 procedure against Poland may be related to Warsaw’s refusal to accept Muslim migrants, spokeswoman of the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party Beata Mazurek said on Wednesday.

    “This may be an effect not only of the opposition’s informing (on Poland to the EC) but also because we don’t want to accept immigrants, we don’t want to accept Muslim migrants, as we care for the security of Poles,” Mazurek told reporters.

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  6. SEATTLE — A federal judge in Seattle on Saturday partially lifted a Trump administration ban on certain refugees after two groups argued that the policy prevented people from some mostly Muslim countries from reuniting with family living legally in the United States.

    U.S. District Judge James Robart heard arguments Thursday in lawsuits from the American Civil Liberties Union and Jewish Family Service, which say the ban causes irreparable harm and puts some people at risk. Government lawyers argued that the ban is needed to protect national security.

    Robart ordered the federal government to process certain refugee applications. He said his order applies to people "with a bona fide relationship to a person or entity within the United States."

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  7. A Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokesman late Saturday labeled a string of shootings in Harrisburg, Pa., targeting police officers a terror attack and used the incident to criticize chain migration.

    Tyler Houlton said in a tweet that DHS confirmed that the suspect, 51-year-old Ahmed Amin El-Mofty, benefited from extended family chain migration, which takes place when immigrants in the U.S. sponsor other family members for visas.

    “Ahmed Amin El-Mofty was a naturalized U.S. citizen who was admitted to the United States from Egypt on a family-based immigrant visa. El-Mofty was killed yesterday in a shootout after allegedly opening fire and targeting police at multiple locations in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania,” the acting DHS press secretary said. “The long chain of migration that led to the suspect's admission into the United States was initiated years ago by a distant relative of the suspect."

    El-Mofty allegedly opened fire on police officers in three different locations in the state's capital on Friday. The FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were reportedly investigating whether the shootings could be considered an act of terror.

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    1. El-Mofty shows his gratitude on being allowed to live here.

      Stop Muslim Immigration To USA now !

      Delete
  8. New terrorist-linked cases have skyrocketed this year, increasing almost fivefold compared to 2016, Germany's Federal Prosecutors Office has said. The revelation comes as judges lament that human resources are overstretched.

    As many as 1,200 investigations have been launched by federal prosecutors over various terrorist-related activities this year, the Federal Prosecutor’s Office told the dpa news agency. It added that 1,000 cases involved radical Islamists.

    The figures were described as an “enormous increase” from the previous year, when only around 250 similar cases were recorded, with 200 being linked to radical Islam. The Federal Prosecutor’s Office did not elaborate on the reasons for the significant rise, and provided no details about the nature of the activities that led to the initiation of the criminal investigations.

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  9. As things stand, the situation threatens to overwhelm local judges and law enforcement authorities as well, warns the German Judges Association. In addition, regional authorities are dealing with a growing number of terrorism-related cases that particularly involve jihadists leaving the country to fight in Iraq and Syria, as well as some terrorist sympathizers who are financing extremist groups.

    “The cases handed over by the federal prosecutors come on top of it,” Sven Rebehn, the head of the judges association told Der Spiegel, adding, “the situation is tense everywhere.” He said Germany needs some 2,000 additional judges and prosecutors to deal with the case backlog.

    ReplyDelete
  10. VATICAN CITY —
    Pope Francis strongly defended immigrants at his Christmas Eve Mass on Sunday, comparing them to Mary and Joseph finding no place to stay in Bethlehem and saying faith demands that foreigners be welcomed.

    Francis, celebrating his fifth Christmas as leader of the world’s 1.2 billion Roman Catholics, led a solemn Mass for about 10,000 people in St. Peter’s Basilica while many others followed the service from the square outside.

    Security was stepped up, with participants checked as they approached St. Peter’s Square even before going through metal detectors to enter the basilica. The square had been cleared hours earlier so security procedures could be put in place.

    The Gospel reading at the Mass in Christendom’s largest church recounted the Biblical story of how Mary and Joseph had to travel from Nazareth to Bethlehem to be registered for a census ordered by Roman Emperor Caesar Augustus.

    “So many other footsteps are hidden in the footsteps of Joseph and Mary. We see the tracks of entire families forced to set out in our own day. We see the tracks of millions of persons who do not choose to go away, but driven from their land, leave behind their dear ones,” Francis said.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Bush/Obama/Clinton gift to Europe:

    Up to 10,000 people stranded in refugee camps and detention centres in Libya could be relocated to Europe in 2018, the Italian government said on Sunday.
    The initiative would be part of an attempt by EU countries to address the deteriorating conditions in Libya, where thousands of people are held captive in inhumane conditions.

    "In 2018, up to 10,000 refugees will be able to come to Europe without risk, through humanitarian corridors," Italian Interior Minister Marco Minniti said in an interview with the newspaper La Repubblica.

    The announcement comes after a group of 162 "vulnerable" people, from Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia and Yemen, were evacuated from Libya and arrived by military plane in Rome on Friday.

    The group included single mothers, unaccompanied children and handicapped people, and was the first time refugees and migrants had been relocated directly to Europe by the UN's refugee agency (UNHCR).

    About 400,000 migrants are in Libya, including roughly 36,000 children, the UN children's agency UNICEF and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said earlier this month.

    In 2018, the IOM aims to repatriate 30,000 migrants to their home countries as part of a voluntary return programme. Around 15,000 have been sent back this year.

    ReplyDelete
  12. The NYT has Jesus, if he were here, spending the season with lesbians this year.

    I wonder how the little children might feel about that, not to mention the male gays.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. .

      I wish him luck.

      When I was a callow youth, I attempted to move, with limited success, more than one lesbian from her existing sinful ways into more conventional sinful ways.

      .

      Delete
    2. Here's to convention: Merry Christmas1

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    3. A hard noble upstanding task which only the best among us should attempt.

      Even though your success rate may not have been as firm as your desires you at least can say:

      "I gave her my all."

      Delete
  13. Merry Christmas 😎
    The future is bright!

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  14. HO HO HO !

    Merry Christmas to all !

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  15. What Would The World Look Like If Christ Had Never Been Born ?

    To find out go to the lead article with that title at:

    American Thinker

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Not providing a link means it is worthless in the future for all eternity.

      (and it's rude)

      Delete
    2. I am using a Shitphone and can't do it.

      Delete
    3. Where can I pick up a shitphone?

      ...does it come with gloves?

      Delete
    4. At the ShitShop.

      Gloves are extra.

      Delete
  16. That book I was reading, The Alchemist, was truly wonderful

    Our Hero Quester, feeling a lack in his life as a Shepard in the everyday world of Spain, moves, with a helpful nudge from a helper figure called The King, to the realm of supernatural wonder, the Sahara Desert in Africa, in search of his 'treasure'.

    Much adventure and psychological growth occur, and our Hero wins out over the psychological forces of resistance attaining his 'treasure' but not in the form of gold, but in the form of a higher consciousness.

    And, he even meets up with the love of his life, Fatima, in the end.

    It just doesn't get any better than this, and I LOVE happy endings !

    Recommended reading !

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    Replies
    1. There is also a good deal of evolutionary philosophical discussion for those so minded and good descriptions of the desert and it's rugged life.

      Also much fighting among the desert tribes always lurking dangerously in the background sometimes just over the next sand dunes.

      Delete
    2. All of this fantastic outward action of course doesn't take place 'out there's but up here, in the noggin.

      Except perhaps for Fatima ����

      'The eternal feminine leads us onward'

      Goethe

      Delete
  17. . Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! .

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  18. We are not alone. There are other countries that share Western Civilization that are fighting with us. Not many, at the moment, but there will be more and for the first time in many years, we can say that the battle is beginning to go our way.

    Christianity and the JudeoChristian philosophy is the heart and soul of Western Civilization, and Western Civilization is the greatest culture that humanity has ever seen. You can't separate them. Thank God that there are other nations that also recognize it.

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