Right As Usual

Here's some information about the Antifa (Anti-Fascist) members you might find interesting. I'm NOT saying that the Alt-Right is OK, or without blame. Neither side covered themselves with glory in Charlottesville. The trouble is, BOTH sides think they were the put-upon one. From what I could see (both in the TV news, and online videos), almost everyone in that situation made some bad choices. The Alt-Right - for deliberately provoking with their use, or accommodation of Nazi symbols, Supremacist chants, and confrontational attitudes. Perhaps, as they claim, all of the marchers weren't in those groups. But, by allying themselves with those who were, they undermined their position, and supported those fringe-element aims. The Antifa - for their use of violence in previous actions - throwing things, vandalizing, assaulting people. Their history made a tense situation even worse, as their opposition had some justification for feeling threatened. I especially disliked t...

As usual, Francis Porretto knocks one out of the ballpark. A short excerpt: 1. "Do Unto Others As You Would Have Them Do Unto You." This is one of the most important things Jesus said during His time on Earth. It's also the most inaccurately applied. How is Smith to know how Jones would like Smith to treat him? Is he to proceed solely from Jones's words, or is there "a more reliable authority?" I would go by Jones's actions. An honest man's words and deeds will run in concert. A dishonest man will lie with his lips but speak truth with his hands. When words and actions disagree, the better course is to trust the actions. For some years, the actions of the Left have been entirely aggressive and venal. Leftists are uninterested in rational discourse; they want power and will do whatever it takes to get it. Since the opposed movement of the Right is founded on rational discourse, they silence us when they can and shout us down when they can't. Since...

I was reading Jay Nordlinger, of the National Review , and I found a reference to a recently deceased soldier of WWII, who had been captured in Japan. After his return, he worked as a Christian missionary in Japan after the war. Why? Amid his misery, Corporal DeShazer had one source of solace. “I begged my captors to get a Bible for me,” he recalled in “I Was a Prisoner of Japan,” a religious tract he wrote in 1950. “At last, in the month of May 1944, a guard brought me the book, but told me I could have it only for three weeks. I eagerly began to read its pages. I discovered that God had given me new spiritual eyes and that when I looked at the enemy officers and guards who had starved and beaten my companions and me so cruelly, I found my bitter hatred for them changed to loving pity. I realized that these people did not know anything about my Savior and that if Christ is not in a heart, it is natural to be cruel.” Corporal DeShazer gained the strength to survive, and he became det...

Yeah, we got it - the Mideast was a paradise for all religions until the big, bad US came to town. What a moron.

From Girl on the Right "We want a personal apology (from the Pope). We feel that he has committed a grave error against us and that this mistake will only be removed through a personal apology," Muslim Brotherhood Deputy Leader Mohammed Habib told Reuters. Yeah? And we're still waiting for an apology for the World Trade Center attacks - both of them! And the USS Cole. And the Pentagon. And Pennsylvania. And Madrid. And Bali. And the Embassy. And London. And... I'm sure I'm missing quite a few, but I just woke up from a nap, so please excuse my foggy memory. If you're waiting for an apology from the Pope, you waited too long. Pope John Paul II was the official apology guy, and he's dead. Meet the new boss... NOT the same as the old boss. Always liked that Girl. You know, initially, I didn't think of the Pope's comments as that important - it seemed to be a relatively small part of a longer speech. That probably just shows my naivete - of course an ...

Steve Centanni and cameraman Olaf Wiig, the two journalists who converted have caused many bloggers to raise the issue - is it preferable to stay alive, but putatively Islamic? One man, on RealClearPolitics, disagrees: They were told to convert to Islam under implicit threat (blindfolded and hand-tied, they could not judge what threat), and agreed to make the propaganda broadcasts to guarantee their own safety. That much we can understand, as conventional cowardice. (Understand; not forgive.) But it is obvious from their later statements that they never thought twice; that they could see nothing wrong in serving the enemy, so long as it meant they'd be safe. I assume they are not Christians (few journalists are), but had they ever been instructed in that faith, they might have grasped that conversion to Islam means denial of Christ, and that is something many millions of Christians (few of them intellectuals) have refused to do, even at the cost of excruciating deaths. Christianit...