The Ven. Met. Andrei Sheptytsky

Andrei Sheptytsky was born July 29, 1865 in Prylbychi Yavoriv County, Galicia and died November 1, 1944 in Lviv. He lived through two world wars and experienced totalitarianism under two different socialist regimes of the Bolsheviks and the Nazis. He was actually baptized as a Roman Catholic but petitioned the Pope for a change of rites which was granted. He would soon become one of the foremost leaders in the Ukrainian-Greek Catholic Church. He was both political and theological and in all things focused on the service of the Church and the Gospel of Christ in Ukraine. He would go on to study at the Jesuit university in Cracow, Poland and would very quickly ascend within the ranks of the Greek Catholic clergy. A fierce traditionalist, he would be deemed with suspicion by his fellow Ukrainians at first who believed he wanted to Latinize the Greek rites, but instead, he went the other direction. He became one of the strongest supporters, if not the strongest supporter, of the Eastern Catholic rites. He was a Uniate and always defended unification with Rome, but he would support the full expression of the Eastern rites in the Catholic faith.

He was known for both his political and his theological activities. In 1914, he would be arrested by the Tsarist government for his activities with the Austro-Hungarian government during World War I. After his release in 1917, he would speak in defense of an independent Ukrainian national state and would support the establishment of the Western Ukrainian National Republic. He would be confined to Lviv for his support of the Ukrainian National Rada by the Polish government. In 1931, he established the Ukrainian Catholic Union in order to further the Church's social teaching and enhance its standing in Ukraine. He would be denounced by pro-Soviet Ukrainians for his criticism of the Ukrainian famine of 1932-1933 and his condemnation of the Communist government.

When the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union, Sheptytsky encouraged obedience to the new occupying state. However, when he realized their persecution of the Jews, he was at the forefront of the Church leaders to defend them. His mistake was one that was made by the Russian Liberation Army, for those familiar with The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. Many believed the Nazi government would promise more freedom than the Soviets had, for when one only lives under a totalitarian regime, it is easy to fail to distinguish or discriminate the fact that no totalitarianism is better than another.

Sheptytsky was a learned man, well-regarded for his pastoral and theological discipline. He was an intellectual, a politician, and a Churchman. He aided Pope Pius X in the establishment of the Russian-Greek Catholic Church. The move met with little success as very few became adherents to the new church and it was heavily opposed by the Ukrainian Orthodox, yet Sheptytsky's vision for an Uniate Church in Russia would not be dissuaded so easily. He met many learned philosophers, theologians, and Catholics when he visited the Russian Empire in the late 19th century, including Vladimir Soloviev. His title of Bishop of Komianets-Podilskyi, though an inactive eparchy, gave him full responsibility of all the Eastern Rite Catholics throughout the Russian Empire. It was the Petersburg Synod of Eastern Catholics in 1917-1918 that reversed much of the damage of the Synod of Zamość. The Petersburg Synod also approved the veneration of canonized Orthodox saints in the Eastern Catholic Church. Of course, certain saints who had died in schismatic churches were already venerated such as St. John the Almsgiver, St. Elesbaan, the King of Ethiopia, and St. Isaac of Nineveh.

Sheptytsky wanted to unite all of Ukraine under a united Ukrainian Church. His vision was to establish a Ukrainian Church under the authority of the Pope of Rome. He was heavily Eastern and sought the restoration of Eastern traditions, but he was always a fierce Papist. The Ukrainian Orthodox hated this idea for they would never want an autocephalous church underneath the authority of the Pope of Rome. Sheptytsky was an Hebraist and was well-studied in the Hebrew language. This helped him gain Jewish allies when the Nazi persecutions began. He kept Jews in hiding in the monasteries and instructed his flock to do the same. His brilliance and resilience under persecution earned the respect of the Church and when the Soviets took the Ukraine again, the persecutions of the Church would remain moderate. He stayed in Lviv until his death in 1944.

Many of his works have been published posthumously. The Sheptytsky Institute under the University of St. Michael's College in the University of Toronto is named after him. He had visited Canada in 1912. His disciple, Met. Josyf Slipyj, he consecrated, and was made a Cardinal by Pope Paul VI. Some of his works were published in volumes such as The Works of the Servant of God Metropolitan Andrei Sheptytsky: Pastoral Letters and The Church and Church Unity: Documents and Materials. He wrote much on topics such as ecumenism, theology, spirituality, history, and philosophy. His vision for an Uniate Church under the full authority of the Pope of Rome would be betrayed at Vatican II when the hierarchy broke for a false ecumenism favoring the Eastern Orthodox Church's role as opposed to the Traditionalist Catholic position, and the Catholic position, of the Church's jurisdictional authority being fully placed under the Pope of Rome. Sheptytsky was nevertheless influential for Eastern Rite Catholics and Ukrainian-Greek Catholics in recovering much of the Eastern Tradition that had been lost and forming us once again back to the Catholic theology of the one Mother Church. We are not Orthodox in Union with Rome. We are Greek Catholics and our theology is Catholic. Met. Andrei Sheptytsky is venerated on November 1 in the Ukrainian Catholic calendar.

Sources:

Confessor Between East and West, Jaroslav Pelikan

"Sheptytsky, Andrei"

"Metropolitan Andriy Sheptytsky (Andrei Sheptytsky) who was called 'the apostle of Ukrainian Truth'"

Medical Ethics and Vaccine Mandates

Vaccine mandates are nothing new. In fact, they have a very recent history tracing all the way back to the Enlightenment period. This was also the period when vaccinations first arrived as a science. In the history of Russia, the first ever to be vaccinated is believed to be Catherine the Great, who was inoculated against small pox in 1768[1]. The science of vaccination was new at the time and the process was highly dangerous, one had a stronger chance of dying from the inoculation process than one does now. But small pox outbreaks were also terrible. And the Empress Catherine had seen Countess Sheremeteva, whose fiancé, Count Nikita Panin, was her son's mentor. Because of this, Catherine had a great fear of small pox and was willing to do anything. She brought Thomas Dimsdale into her courts whose inoculation procedures were new at the time and had him administer the inoculation to her. She developed a small pox illness which was claimed to have been reduced significantly by the new vaccination method. Loving the new science, she declared as blockheads and wicked in a private letter to her friend Voltaire, any one who refused the treatment[2]. It is unclear if she ever mandated vaccinations though.

At a similar time period, small pox was infecting the Holy Roman Empire at its highest levels of authority. The Empress Maria Theresa became infected with small pox and small pox also claimed the lives of both the wives of the Emperor Joseph II, Isabella of Parma and Maria Josefa. Maria Theresa's daughter Josefa also died from small pox. Voltaire had warned that sixty our of one hundred people were infected with small pox in 1734. Fearing small pox, Maria Theresa began to implement the new biotechnology throughout the Empire, however, people lacked trust in the bureaucratic institutions of the Health Fund. How do you convince people to receive a new medicine when they cannot trust the authorities implementing the medicine? Maria Theresa, much like the Empress Catherine, criticized the peasants who preferred, out of the goodness of their heart, to listen to the wise counsel of God. In her efforts to convince the public, she decided to use orphans as her guinea pigs and mandated that approximately 20-30 orphans throughout the poorhouses in Graz be vaccinated.[3] Today, this would be considered close to a war crime and definitely a violation of children's rights.

In the Duchy of Parma, in the early 1830s, Maria Luigia began the most bureaucratically controlled vaccination campaign which established different incentives and would mete out punishments, such as government aid, refusal to be admitted to hospices, boarding schools, private and public schools. Once again, the process was not necessarily the safest but these had to be done according to the will of the bureaucracy because small pox was "too dangerous".

The inoculation fluid had to be preserved all the year round in the foundling hospice for infants, annexed to the maternity hospital. For fluid we have to intend not only the one preserved in tubes (minimal amount) but the one kept constantly in the hospice with regular grafts from one child to another. The children were the true deposit of the fluid, the small amount preserved in glass tubes was only a reserve in case of failure of engraftment of the vaccinations, thus interrupting the human chain. Today, such a method would certainly be considered unethical and a serious violation of human rights and of children in particular, but for those times was a normal and completely lawful thing.[4]

The process, was not necessarily the most ethical either. And this was not the last time a vaccine mandate would be ordered. We would reach all the way into the early 20th century with the case of Jacobson v. Massachusetts. A man named Henning Jacobson would refuse to pay a fine to the State of Massachusetts after being ordered to be inoculated with a small pox vaccine he had received when he was younger. He was a Swedish immigrant and had already received a small pox vaccine at a younger age. He did not want it. His case was taken all the way to Supreme Court where the Court ruled in favor of the State of Massachusetts thus establishing a precedent for quite some time that the government has authority over your medical choices. The case was used to justify sterilization. So it was more shocking when the Nuremburg trial of 1947 found the Nazi doctors guilty of medical experimentation on Holocaust victims. The Nuremburg trial essentially reversed the precedents that had been held since the Enlightenment.[6]

And in 1952, Pope Pius XII spoke to a group of medical researchers in a letter titled, "The Moral Limits of Medical Research and Treatment" which further challenged the ethical precedents established by that era of Enlightenment despotism. In it, Pope Pius XII calls into question such a top-down approach. Is a man's duty to the community or does the community exist for man? In the increasingly despotic state produced by the Hobbesian Leviathan, the bureaucratic faceless evil, man's duty is principally for the community. The great postwar trials brought to light a terrifying number of documents testifying to the sacrifice of the individual in the “medical interests of the community.”

25. In the minutes of these trials one finds testimony and reports showing how, with the consent and, at times, even under the formal order of public authority, certain research centers systematically demanded to be furnished with persons from concentration camps for their medical experiments. One finds how they were delivered to such centers, so many men, so many women, so many for one experiment, so many for another. There are reports on the conduct and the results of such experiments, of the subjective and objective symptoms observed during the different phases of the experiments. One cannot read these reports without feeling a profound compassion for the victims, many of whom went to their deaths, and without being frightened by such an aberration of the human mind and heart. But We can also add that those responsible for these atrocious deeds did no more than to reply in the affirmative to the question We have asked and to accept the practical consequences of their affirmation.[7]

But Pope Pius XII corrects this view that was so commonly held before the famous statement of the Nuremburg Code.

28. In the above mentioned cases, insofar as the moral justification of the experiments rests on the mandate of public authority, and therefore on the subordination of the individual to the community, of the individual’s welfare to the common welfare, it is based on an erroneous explanation of this principle. It must be noted that, in his personal being, man is not finally ordered to usefulness to society. On the contrary, the community exists for man.[8]

And thus, he concludes, that ultimately, in the case of administering medicine to man, the following needs consideration:

38. Without doubt, before giving moral authorization to the use of new methods, one cannot ask that any danger or any risk be excluded. That would exceed human possibilities, paralyze all serious scientific research and very frequently be to the detriment of the patient. In these cases the weighing of the danger must be left to the judgment of the tried and competent doctor. Nevertheless, as Our explanation has shown, there is a degree of danger that morality cannot allow. In doubtful cases, when means already known have failed, it may happen that a new method still insufficiently tried offers, together with very dangerous elements, appreciable chances of success. If the patient gives his consent, the use of the procedure in question is licit. But this way of acting cannot be upheld as a line of conduct in normal cases.[9]

A man must be warned of any potential dangers to himself. We are given numbers, not all of them honest, on the current wave of vaccines. Which ones are ethical, which ones are safe, which ones are effective, etc. Even further, we've truly shown ourselves heirs to the Beast of the Enlightenment Despotisms. And while the science on the Anthony Fauci disease and the science of the Anthony Fauci disease vaccines keeps changing, apparently, the Enlightenment science that vaccines eventually stop the spread of transmission or that herd immunity is only acquired through vaccination, or that all must be vaccinated to stop every illness, has been set in stone. This is the sacred science that cannot change under any circumstance. We have already made the conclusion that the vaccines accomplish this goal so there is no consideration, not even based on current numbers in Israel, that the vaccines might actually be failing to do what our leaders have been insisting they would do. We continue to quarantine "fully vaccinated" people who have been infected or reinfected with the Fauci and yet tell with a straight face to our fellow man that the vaccines will stop the spread of transmission. Do we really believe ourselves any more or are we beginning to set up a masquerade to justify how we have given into such power?

1. mos.ru. (2019, September 21). From Catherine the great to the Red hippo: History of vaccination in Russia / news / Moscow CITY web site. Moscow City Web Site. https://www.mos.ru/en/news/item/62002073/.

2. Foussianes, C. (2021, April 30). Catherine the Great, VACCINE QUEEN. Town & Country. https://www.townandcountrymag.com/society/tradition/a35091190/catherine-the-great-vaccine-queen/.

3. Winkler, A. (n.d.). The battle against smallpox. Die Welt der Habsburger. https://www.habsburger.net/en/chapter/battle-against-smallpox.

4. Virdis, R. (2019, May 23). The beginning of smallpox vaccination in the Duchy of Parma. Acta bio-medica : Atenei Parmensis. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6776211/#!po=1.00000.

5. Henning Jacobson loses his fight with the board of public health OVER VACCINATION. New England Historical Society. (2021, April 29). https://www.newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/henning-jacobson-loses-his-freedom-to-the-board-of-public-health/.

6. The Nuremberg Code. (n.d.). http://www.cirp.org/library/ethics/nuremberg/. .pdf

7. The moral limits of medical research and treatment. Papal Encyclicals. (2017, April 25). https://www.papalencyclicals.net/pius12/p12psych.htm.

8. Ibid.

9. Ibid.

W.H.O. to rename COVID-19 in honor of esteemed immunologist Anthony Fauci

This morning, the W.H.O. announced that it will be renaming COVID-19 in honor of the esteemed immunologist Anthony Fauci. COVID-19, which is called that as an abbreviation of "corona virus disease 2019" because it emerged from Wuhan, China in the year 2019 after the U.S. government released it onto the wet market from the lab in Wuhan, China funded by Fauci's gain of function research, is the disease caused by the novel SARS-CoV-2 virus.

"It just wasn't a really catchy name for a disease. I mean we have bird flu, swine flu, Lou Gehrig's disease, the Spanish flu, etc. We needed a better name for it."

Dr. Tedros said when he was asked for comment on the name change.

The W.H.O. which has honored the work of the esteemed immunologist Dr. Anthony Fauci, whose research funds may have indeed funded the origin of the novel corona virus disease in the first place, has made the decision to name the disease instead after him. From here on out, COVID-19 will now be know as "Anthony Fauci disease". He sometimes spells his name with an "x" in it but the spelling for the disease will be kept without the "x".

"I am honored to finally have accomplished something. I have bungled AIDS/HIV for years, I have murdered dogs in experiments that didn't benefit anyone, and now I finally have an accomplishment to tell my grandkids. Your grandfather is a disease! I mean, I have been sick for over a year too as proof by the fact that I wear a mask too! And now it's cemented in history. I am a disease. There is now an Anthony Fauci disease and I am he!"

Anthony Fauci said as he might have smiled, it was difficult to tell since he was wearing a boot stamping on a human face forever on his face.

"I think now that there is a vaccine out there, we will certainly see that Anthony Fauci disease will continue to get worse and worse so it is important everyone get our vaccine so that money can be funneled into our company and face severe restrictions if you don't."

Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said leaving Moderna, Johnson&Johnson, and Astrazeneca furious that there was this Pfizer-privilege being granted by the federal government and frantically working to gouge prices and shovel bribes to the State.

The W.H.O. re-emphasized that vaccinated individuals infected with asymptomatic Anthony Fauci disease cannot possibly spread it and continued to heap blame on the unvaccinated who, even if they don't have Anthony Fauci disease, can still spread it. They further reassured that the vaccinated must continue to perpetually fear the unvaccinated. They also reached out to the Pope to pressure the heathen unvaccinated Catholics that they are betraying their own Catholic faith by refusing to reject the infallibly declared Mass of the Ages in favor of the Novus Ordo that they are violating charity by not receiving the vaccine. The Pope will soon declare vaccination against Anthony Fauci disease a sacramental pre-requisite to baptism. Joe Biden continues to administer Holy Eucharist in the Vatican.

CDC to offer new guidelines on how to bury the bodies of the unvaccinated

This afternoon, the CDC has announced guidelines on how to bury the bodies of unvaccinated individuals. These guidelines include socially distancing, wearing a mask, wearing two masks, and maybe even a boot stamping on a human face forever. They also include handling the dead body with rubber gloves.

"The dead body of an unvaccinated individual contains higher levels of the virus than the dead bodies of vaccinated individuals. All bodies of unvaccinated individuals should be wearing at least two masks when they are buried. It's understandable that you might want to kiss them while they rest in their coffins before burial but we would likely see a super spreader if that were to occur. Don't blame me, blame your loved one."

Fauxci said as he put on a second and third mask to hide his ugly face.

Many white privileged American neo-Nazis continue to refuse vaccination claiming things like, "you'll still get COVID even after you get vaccinated!" These claims have been debunked by the people who created the vaccinations and now have massive monetary bargaining deals with the government so to not trust them is insanity. Vaccinations are received to prevent you from dying. The Pope said it was a charitable act because by preventing yourself from dying, you actually prevent everyone from dying. In addition, social distancing needs to be implemented, not just double-masking of your loved one.

"The unvaccinated should be buried six feet apart, not just six feet under."

Rochelle Walensky said.

Many neo-Nazi fascists continue to complain about the rules currently but vaccination definitely ends the spread. You know this because the same people who told you Afghanistan would not fall to a hoard of angry goat-herders told you that it could and we would never lie to you. Fascists have this obsessive idea that the government routinely lies to them.

One girl we asked for comment said, "My father was vaccinated against COVID-19 and he was infected with it and died from it. But had he not been vaccinated, it would have been much worse. Please get vaccinated!"

Anthony Fauxci further insists that the vaccine will prevent the spread of COVID-19. Even people who are infected with COVID-19 after being vaccinated, no matter how sick they are, cannot possibly spread it which is why they are no longer obligated to wear masks and why the fully vaccinated Texas Governor who was recently infected with COVID-19 is now isolating to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

"We have a pandemic of the unvaccinated." Said the loopy President Joe Biden just last month. It is true. The reckless, non-isolating unvaccinated people are spreading it because even if they don't have COVID-19, the fact that they aren't wearing masks shows they are spreading it. Vaccinated people, even if they have COVID-19, will not spread it. 100% of the population needs to be fully vaccinated and it is inevitable that we will see mandates imposed universally as Pfizer and Moderna begin to price gouge. The CDC ensures that there is absolutely no corruption going on there.

Should a monarch mandate vaccines?

*Note: I've read "the science" on both sides of the issue, I am only arguing on an ethical perspective. I have no interest in "science" on this one and any refutation of this argument should be based on the ethics. The fact of the matter is that "the science" is ridiculously based on junk propaganda hailing from both sides of the aisle on "vaccines are bad" to "vaccines end the spread of illnesses". When governmental "scientists" are literally talking about how vaccinated people and unvaccinated people with the same illness have "different levels of virus", we have literally creeped into cuckoo-ville. Either I just slept through all the "asymptomatic" spread alerts from 2020 or somehow the virus decided to "settle" down when an infected person who has been vaccinated ends up with COVID and has symptoms.

The question as to whether a monarch should mandate vaccines is a multi-faceted ethical argument that is based on the question of freedom and the role of the monarch in preserving freedom and order in society, the question of tyranny, and the question of holding medicine as a bargaining chip for earning freedom. Obviously, there are many things that we do in life that can justifiably end up with us being stripped of our freedoms and having to earn it back. Deliberately infecting someone with an illness is also provably monstrous. However, in the case of an epidemic or a pandemic in which a person can be exposed unknowingly to a disease at a given moment and then unknowingly spread it to another person is of an entirely different merit. No one has any control over nature. Vaccines are generally used to trigger the immune system to responding to a particular disease in order to prepare the immune system for defense against the particular disease they've received vaccination for. But also, likewise, is exposure to the actual illness for which the vaccine is for to have the same effect, obviously. This exposure to the illness builds up the immune response which in turn allows the body to be better equipped to fighting the disease. The theory is that the immune people will then prevent disease transmission. This is called herd immunity which the Encyclopedia Britannica describes as follows:

Herd immunity, also called community immunity, state in which a large proportion of a population is able to repel an infectious disease, thereby limiting the extent to which the disease can spread from person to person. Herd immunity can be conferred through natural immunity, previous exposure to the disease, or vaccination. An entire population does not need to be immune to attain herd immunity. Rather, herd immunity can occur when the population density of persons who are susceptible to infection is sufficiently low so as to minimize the likelihood of an infected individual coming in contact with a susceptible individual.

Note the part I bold. If one is going for herd immunity, natural immunity and previous exposure are both sufficient alternatives to vaccination. Ergo, the question as to whether someone who has been around a certain group of infected people should be mandated to take a vaccine is, according to the Encyclopedia Britannica a "no". This will be elaborated even further when one considers corporate investment in medicines. I believe there is a strong need to be concerned given the socialization of medicine in recent years that we could see corporatist based medical tyranny.

What is freedom? According to H.J.A. Sire,

Freedom consists in the fulfilment of one's nature by the complete exercise of the human powers. Since its purpose is fulfilment, its proper objects are the things that truly fulfil man. In that, freedom may be compared to the commonplace function of eating, as a good and as a right. The good of eating embraces eating the things that we need to live on; it does not extend to an indiscriminate voracity for things that we should not be eating at all. ... [P]atriots rightly rebel against foreign domination; subjects do not rightly rebel against their legitimate king. To be free is to reject what is alien and to live under one's proper law, whether it is a political constitution or the moral law that defines human nature. (Phoenix From the Ashes, 349-350)

Freedom is not a right to excess but a basic need. Human interaction is not a right to excess but also a need. In fact, Solzhenitsyn also indicates that after the isolation that was imposed upon the enemies of the state in the Soviet Gulags that one would more than likely be begging to be put to death instead of putting up with the isolation (The Gulag Archipelago, Part 1, ch. 11). When God created man, he expressed that it was not good for the man to be alone. When someone disallows you a basic necessity and holds up another thing as a bargaining chip for you to get it back, that is called abuse. They are demanding that you place immediate trust that they will fulfill their word despite the fact that what has been taken away is a basic necessity. When someone refuses to feed you unless they first gain something in return from you, they are withholding your need to eat in order to gain something from you. That is not the behavior of a loving father but the behavior of an abusive father.

Plato describes his ideal ruler in The Republic. It is one who has the spirit of philosophy, a true lover of wisdom, control over his passions, and is reluctant to govern.

Until philosophers are kings, and princes of this world have the spirit and power of philosophy, and political greatness and wisdom meet in one, and those commoner natures who pursue either to the exclusion of the other are compelled to stand aside, cities will never have rest from their evils. (Republic, Bk. 5)

The ideal ruler does not rule in order to rule. "The ruler who is good for anything ought not to beg his subjects to be ruled by him" (Bk. 6) The true ruler is not concerned with maintaining power because he has no self-interests. He is a servant by example and a ruler because he leads. This is the best State. "Whereas the State in  which the rulers are most reluctant to govern is always the best and most quietly governed, and the State in which they are most eager, the worst." (Bk. 7)

On contrast, the tyrant is rules in order to rule. He emerges from a democratic State which has indulged in the excesses of freedom. Freedom is a need but here, we see freedom being taken as a license to indulge in immorality. The tyrant emerges in order to solve a problem. Thus, the tyrant comes into play during a crisis scenario, claiming he is the one who can fix the problems. After he has fixed the problems though, he still has an appetite for power. He gins up wars against his enemies and instills fears into his citizens. He must convince the public that they always need a leader. But when he runs out of enemies, he must stir up other wars.

And if any of them are suspected by him of having notions of freedom, and of resistance to his authority, he will have a good pretext for destroying them by placing them at the mercy of the enemy; and for all these reasons the tyrant must be always getting up a war. (Bk. 8)

In Book 9, Plato describes the tyrant as someone always indulged in passions. He wants to entertain these passions to an excess but cannot find the funds. So he goes after his own subjects.

One thing clear about this pandemic from the beginning is that our leaders have always seen this as a war. They have routinely seen this issue in terms of martial concepts. Like the tyrant, they look to gin up fear in the populace and create an enemy. There is a convenience especially in a pandemic to gin up fear among the populace. Fear of death, fear of being infected with a disease one could die from, fear of neighbor who could likely infect them. The leaders have said they are the only ones who can resolve the problem, we must look to them without question as a quasi-Messianic figure leading us through darkness. They don't indicate when it will end or even if it is clear that it will end. This progresses toward an infinite loop where they are always creating a crisis. One moment, we could have basic liberties that we take for granted, attending church regularly, seeing our friends' faces, hanging out at the mall, etc. The next minute, all social interaction is cut off, we are locked in our houses, wearing masks, convinced to join our leaders in this war that has no mark on when it will end. Our leaders will give us a goal at one point and then a new one the next. This is the kind of behavior that Plato would more than likely see if he were alive today as tyrannical. The tyrant, in order to increase his power, must always be getting up a war so that he is continuously looked on as a leader.

St. Nicodemos the Hagiorite has the following to say about medical ethics:

[I]n such a time of famine, hunger, and sickness, or some other such calamity, you rich, you merchants, you buyers of wheat and other fruits, and likewise you physicians, for the love of God beware of selling your produce to the poor and needy at an exorbitant price; and you physicians, do not provide medical care for an excessive fee, and do not become bad doctors, as Job says—'But ye are all unjust physicians and healers of diseases'—finding time to be a helper in making a profit. (Christian Morality, Discourse VIII)

And what high price are the physicians of today's world placing us under? "No jab no job"? The day-to-day things you used to be able to do, you cannot do. Buy our medicine and inject it into yourself or you may not even be able to shop for food. But one might say that the government is paying for it. Well the government pays for it with our money which it taxes us for. The vaccine passport system that people are talking about is a license for governmental and major pharmaceutical company abuse. If it keeps going at this trend, we'll end up with a system of permanent corporatism, subject to the whims and research papers of medical companies that are more interested in making a profit for the medical care they offer. A vaccine passport currently expires after six months. Currently, only one booster shot is needful. But flu vaccines are distributed on a seasonal basis. Could we not assume that the COVID vaccine would also be the same? And then the big pharmaceutical companies price gouge and force us to buy their medicine whether directly or through taxation. They become the partners with the government. Is what we see here a wasteland or a monarchy?

But the true philosopher-king does not need to constantly stir up fear in order to keep his authority. He needs not beg his subjects to allow him to rule and continue to rule. He is not insensitive about his person. He governs himself. Unlike the tyrant. So the answer to the question as to whether a monarch should mandate vaccines, I would say, is no. The reason being that such mandates give leeway to tyrannical oppression and corrupt control over medicine, especially by the pharmaceutical companies that have manufactured the vaccine. Further, that control can easily be extended permanently, just by ginning up another crisis. As Plato states of the tyrant hoping to keep his power and prove that the people still need a leader to guide them, he is always looking to create a war. We are seeing an ongoing war against a virus which no one has control over. I emphasize this to stress that no one deliberately causes infection of another. The tyrant has insisted we are all too sick or might be too sick to even be with each other. At this point, one should ask with a clear and sober mind, do we fear a virus or do we fear each other?

Are unvaccinated Catholics obligated to follow the mask mandates?

The short answer is "no". The long answer goes into the question of determining whether the current mandates are even properly laws at this point. St. Robert Cardinal Bellarmine makes the following point:

"Unjust laws are not properly called laws, as Augustine teaches. Moreover, four conditions are required for a law to be just. 1) On the side of the end, that it is ordained for the common good; for as a king differs from a tyrant, in that the former seeks the common advantage, while the latter seeks his own, so also a just law differs from a tyrannical one. 2) One the side of the agent, that it should be from having authority, for no one can impose a law except upon a subject. 3) On the side of the matter, that it should not forbid virtue, nor command a vice. 4) On the side of form, that a law should be clearly promulgated and constituted in a measure and order due to it, so that a law would preserve that proportion in the distribution of honors and imposition of burdens which subjects have in rank toward the common good." (On the Roman Pontiff, Bk. IV, Ch. XV)

So we should investigate whether a particular law or mandate from an earthly prince follows this criteria before we subjugate ourselves to it. The recent church closures are obviously an infraction of a just law for they forbid the virtue of receiving the benefit of the sacraments. Catholics are not obligated to follow such laws. Therefore, Catholics everywhere ought to be seeking and pressuring their governments to open the churches or face worldwide counter-revolution. But the recent mask mandates that apply only to unvaccinated individuals have left some people wondering whether these are just laws or fraudulent laws. Are unvaccinated people walking around without masks "cheaters" who are using situational advantage to remove their masks. As stated, the short answer is a definitive "no". Under scrutiny, the current laws have actually created severe ethical and moral dilemmas to begin with which has benefited one side over the other. This of course would be sufficient to render the law inherently unjust. Either the law applies to all or it applies to none. But effectively, what these mandates have done is recreated the leper colonies of old where the unvaccinated are pushed aside and treated as lepers. This is doing nothing more but isolating the unvaccinated and the voiding them of their humanity. Unlike the leper colonies of old though, no one cares enough to visit the unvaccinated.

Underneath argument 1, the first question should be addressed whether this is for the common good. It's very difficult to argue in favor of this because no one can actually see a virus. In fact, Fauci's leaked e-mails show that he holds a very low confidence in masks. He even stated how masks would only serve a symbolic gesture. The "common good" that it's supposed to be used for is to "prevent the spread of COVID-19". That sounds good and all but we see the full revolutionary ideology at play here. It is the idea that "I am God and I control the situation!" The fact of the matter, is that it cannot be for the common good because we are not in control of viruses. Further, masks have been shown to have very unhealthy risks for children. What this entails is that masks are not at all beneficial for the common good. If they prevent the spread of COVID-19 at all, they do more harm than good. Since health is holistic, being concerned for only the spread of one disease is not a justifiable excuse for establishing the common good. The common good is something that all objectively understand to be good and it cannot be established that preventing the spread of a viral infection is a greater good than the other health risks that must be taken in concordance with the ascetical lack of not being able to see another person's face in order to establish a healthy relationship with the other. Thus, masks are not inherently critical to the common good. They fail to meet criteria 1. Even further, masks can only ever serve the benefit of those who are fearful of the spread of COVID-19. The tyrant seeks his own good and the tyrant makes tyrannical laws. If the law only seeks the good of those who are fearful of COVID-19 and ignores the good of others, then the law is inherently tyrannical and thus, unjust.

Argument 2 makes the point that the law must be in a relational context of authority to subject. The problem is that in a democracy, there are always ideological dissidents of the authority who refuse to recognize the legitimacy of the one claiming authority. The one claiming authority must rely on the legitimacy he derives from the people. The Biden administration, particularly, insists that its authority is derived from the people. But which people? I didn't vote for the Biden administration. If you voted for Jo Jorgensen, did you vote for Biden? So how could Biden derive his authority from you? If democracy is about the consent of the governed, how does a mere majority make consent? Thus, the context of the authority and subject relationship is broken. There is no objective way to establish legitimacy and if the authority of the government ultimately derives from the people, then by pointing out that you are among the people and did not give consent, you cannot be placed as a subject. Of course, what other things mark legitimate authority? Authority requires legitimacy. For instance, does a governor who insists that infants be left to die have the capability to be entrusted with his state's health policies? Or does such a person lose authority due to a damaged capacity to reason? This may be seen as "begging the question" but the reality is that authority-subject relationship in a democracy itself begs the question!

On matter 3, we have a very serious issue on our hands. The mRNA vaccines out there for one, alter the genetic code. Of course, this is a very serious violation of moral theology as it alters the created order of God by altering the human body itself. A just law must order virtue but this law orders the alteration of the human genome itself. Because of this, the mRNA vaccine can never be said to be ethical. Ethics is not something the modern Leviathan cares for though. By commanding a vaccine that alters the genetic code be taken before you are allowed to remove the mask is to enforce one to violate his moral conscientiousness before being able to be treated like a valued human being. But a just law would order that one be treated like a valued human being regardless. One does not need a genetically altering vaccine in order to be treated as a valued human being. Regardless of what the Leviathan says, we can all be treated like valued human beings without having to subvert our moral conscientiousness. Thus, because the law places ethical violations before valued treatment, Catholics cannot be compelled to be subject to this law. The law is unjust and immoral. Further, many of these vaccines are made using the tissue of cloned aborted fetus cells. The Holy Emperor Constantine was told by a Pagan priest to bathe himself in the blood of children in order to be cured of his leprosy once. When the Emperor went to a Catholic priest, the priest forbade him to do this, baptized him, and this cleansed him from his leprosy. If the Holy Emperor Constantine is an example, we ought to avoid injecting ourselves with vaccines that use fetal cell tissue. But this does not mean we need to sit around and wait before we are able to be treated like valued human beings again. We can therefore remove our masks.

Under argument 4, we can clearly see the law weighs undue burdens upon the unvaccinated forcing them to subvert their moral conscience and, further, has great negative health risks for younger people. Because it imposes undue burdens and creates class groups, the law cannot be reasonably considered a law. It is inherently immoral. One can flippantly state, "must be nice to be in an age group where you won't be strongly harmed by COVID-19" all they want. The fact of the matter is that such a person is actually using "law" in order to benefit themselves. The issues are in fact difficult to navigate but none of the fear of COVID-19 can or should have been ever used to justify lockdowns or universal mask mandates. Further, to place the burden to make decisions regarding morality and health risks on an entire population before they can obtain basic freedoms that a particular class of people behold and to forever shame them is not only egregiously immoral but also unduly tyrannical. When a portion of the population seeks to control another portion of the population, that is an "us vs. them" mentality that is bred into the individual. That is a collectivist mentality that is bred into the individual. You might say that "the government has ordered it! How could this be wrong?" But think of what else governments have ordered. From the Communist State of Stalinist Russia to Hitler's slaughter of the Jews to Roosevelt's imprisonment of Asians to the segregation of colored people from whites. All of these things have been ordered by governments. And the government has been wrong to order these things. In fact, the State, as of this last century, has created a track record of itself being routinely wrong. You may think of these people as "cheaters". Don't do so. They are protesting an inherently unjust law. If you can argue against this, please do so.

Historicism Debunked, Pt. 5 - Origins of Futurism

It is fictitiously claimed by historicist conspiracy theorists that the origins of the doctrine of futurism were concocted by the Jesuit ministers of the Roman Catholic Church as a clever way to distract people from knowing "who the real Antichrist is". One such character who does this is a character we've seen in this series before. His site can be found here. It is quite clear from reading his sources on both preterism and futurism, the former we will tackle in the next article of this series, that he straw-mans both positions! Futurism does not insist on the "resurrection" of a Roman Empire. Futurism rather holds the postulation, historically Rome has not been divided up into ten kings and the Roman Empire may not have actually fallen to begin with as even Spain can claim legitimacy to the Roman Imperial Throne due to its connections with the Habsburgs. We established this position in the previous entry.

He contends that the Futurist school was created out of "panic" as the Pope was being exposed as the Antichrist as Martin Luther and the Reformers began "exposing" the Pope as the true Antichrist that Scriptures identified. Let alone, they can't even tell you which Pope was the Antichrist! But that's beside the point, the historicist school says the Papacy as an office is the Antichrist conflating its ecclesiastical role with the role of the Church played by those operating mostly independent of the Papacy and confusing its role as a secular role as opposed to a religious role. Thus, the historicist argument continues to be void of actual historical substance to back it up. I always found it rather odd that the Papacy even lacks a military. One could say the Swiss Guard is their military but that's more of a body-guard unit of Swiss soldiers. In fact, among the requirements to being in the Swiss guard is that you have to be Swiss. That's not a Papal militia but a secular militia supplied by an independent sovereign. Historicism can never make up its mind as to whether the Papacy is the Beast or the Whore of Babylon. Some say the entire Catholic Church led by the Papacy is the Whore of Babylon. Maybe the reason why historicism is such a bungled mess of interpretation has less to do with the book of Revelation being difficult but rather because the historicist school belongs in the trash-bin of history.

So the Pope, now freaking out (allegedly) because he was identified as the Biblical Antichrist got this guy named Francisco Ribera. The rest of the article's polemics is actually a bit humorous so let me quote it:

"Like Martin Luther, Francisco Ribera also read by candlelight the prophecies about the Antichrist, the Beast, the little horn and that man of sin. But because the Pope was his boss, he came to conclusions vastly different from that of the Protestants. “Why, these prophecies don’t apply to the Catholic Church at all!” Ribera said. Then to whom do they apply? Ribera proclaimed, “To only one sinister man who will rise up at the end of time!” “Fantastic!” was the reply from Rome, and this viewpoint was quickly adopted as the official Roman Catholic position on the Antichrist."

Thus, Ribera is now the "father of Futurism". Only this is wrong. Very wrong. Futurism actually had a very strong history in the Roman Catholic Church prior to the Protestant Reformation. It goes back to St. Irenaeus of Lyons. St. Irenaeus was the disciple of St. Ignatius who was a disciple of St. John, the one who wrote the Apocalypse. This is why the futurist school has maintained weight even with a position that the Olivet Discourse was entirely fulfilled (though most Furturists contend the Olivet Discourse was not entirely fulfilled). We'll go back to different preterist schools in another post though. For now, we will look at the classical futurist position developed by St. Irenaeus.

In Against Heresies, St. Irenaeus interprets the four beasts in Daniel 7 as Babylon, Medo-Persia, Macedonia, and Rome (Bk. V, ch. 26). St. Irenaeus describes the fall of the Roman Empire particularly as "The ten toes, therefore, are these ten kings, among whom the kingdom shall be partitioned, of whom some indeed shall be strong and active, or energetic; others, again, shall be sluggish and useless, and shall not agree" (ibid). On the number 666, St. Irenaeus has this to say:

"the name Evanthas (ΕΥΑΝΘΑΣ) contains the required number, but I make no allegation regarding it. Then also Lateinos (ΛΑΤΕΙΝΟΣ) has the number six hundred and sixty-six; and it is a very probable [solution], this being the name of the last kingdom [of the four seen by Daniel]. For the Latins are they who at present bear rule: I will not, however, make any boast over this [coincidence]. Teitan too, (ΤΕΙΤΑΝ, the first syllable being written with the two Greek vowels ε and ι, among all the names which are found among us, is rather worthy of credit. For it has in itself the predicted number, and is composed of six letters, each syllable containing three letters; and [the word itself] is ancient, and removed from ordinary use; for among our kings we find none bearing this name Titan, nor have any of the idols which are worshipped in public among the Greeks and barbarians this appellation. Among many persons, too, this name is accounted divine, so that even the sun is termed Titan by those who do now possess [the rule]."

Clearly, St. Irenaeus holds the interpretation of Daniel 7 as being a literal division of ten kings and one man coming to uproot three of the kingdoms possessed by those ten kings. But he holds Antichrist as a literal man, not an "office" of the Papacy. The Papacy was of course alive and active in the days of St. Irenaeus and St. Irenaeus even has a list of the prominent Popes in order to prove Apostolic Succession! (Bk. 3, ch. III) So the Papacy did not arise from obscurity as this little horn did.

St. Hippolytus follows St. Irenaeus and writes this of the ten horns:

"As these things, then, are in the future, and as the ten toes of the image are equivalent to (so many) democracies, and the ten horns of the fourth beast are distributed over ten kingdoms, let us look at the subject a little more closely, and consider these matters as in the clear light of a personal survey." (On Christ and Antichrist)

And of course, this is futurist thinking. The Barbarian kingdoms, though uncivilized, were monarchies, not democracies. Thus, the division into ten horns could not be the division of the Western Half in 476! Further, Sts. Hippolytus and Irenaeus are indeed thinking holistically of the Roman Empire. It is difficult to tell whether they would have thought the Holy Roman Empire the legitimate succession but they would have definitely acknowledged the legitimacy of Constantine's successors! Of course, if historicism is merely the position that Biblical prophecy unfolds throughout history, then technically all of the early church's positions on the subject are historicist. Because they felt the collapse of Rome was to come and that it would be divided into ten kingdoms. This was a prophecy in the making.

The Ven. Bede also maintains a futurist approach in his Explanation of the Apocalypse and we can see a clear depiction of the reign of Antichrist as futuristic in St. Hildegard of Bingen's Scivias (Bk. 3, Vision 11). All of these came long before St. Robert Cardinal Bellarmine and Francisco Ribera so to say that the origins of futurism lie with the Jesuits is an intellectually dishonest and deceitful abuse and misunderstanding of historical theology on this subject.

The inherent moral superiority of monarchies

"Many authors glorify war and revolution, bloodshed and conquest. Carlyle and Ruskin, Nietzsche, Georges Sorel, and Spengler were harbingers of the ideas which Lenin and Stalin, Hitler, and Mussolini put into effect."

Ludwig von Mises, Human Action, Part Four, ch. XXIII

Monarchies are inherently morally superior. What more is there to substantiate from this? We have the existence of the revolutionaries who do not care to discriminate over those they slaughter. They have sent women to the guillotine, shot children, looted stores. Does it matter whether they even have a "good" cause? For the degenerate revolutionaries, their only concern is to reap death, intimidate, so that they can hold the power they want. Starting with the French Revolution, barbarism has prevailed among the deranged opponents of monarchism. While one could insist the Colonists were the civilized traitors to His Imperial Majesty but the Founding Fathers of America also intended for a blend of monarchy with aristocracy. The degenerate revolutionaries in France took their treasonous vampire-like activities a step further than we've probably yet to come across even today, but don't worry, the revolutionaries are trying to think up new sordid activities!

"We are told that in this sadistic se orgy, pregnant women were squeezed out in fruit- and winepresses, mothers and their children were slowly roasted to death in bakers' ovens, and women's genitals were filled with gun powder and brought to explosion. We cannot continue to dwell on these unspeakable horrors and should not be surprised that Sade was invoked in whose pornographic writings long passages are devoted to philosophical (and antireligious) reflections." (Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn, The Myth of National Defense, 90)

To emphasize the civilized and generous nature of monarchies, it is important to reflect on the nature of their restraint in punishing those who have come against humanity. The New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia cites the First Statute of English Parliament under Her Majesty Mary Tudor as stating,

That the state of every King consists more assuredly in the love of the subjects towards their prince than in the dread of laws made with rigorous pains; and that laws made for the preservation of the Commonwealth without great penalties are more often obeyed and kept than laws made with extreme punishments.

The philosopher and historian Alexsandr Solzhenitsyn details and compares the usage of capital punishment in Russia during the Tsarist regime and then during the Soviet regime. Capital punishment figures of 87,000 at a low understatement for the years of 1918-1919 alone. In Tsarist Russia, in the years of 1826 to 1906, the numbers of those sentenced to death were 1,397. 233 of those had their sentences commuted and another 270 were sentenced in absentia. (The Gulag Archipelago, Part 1, ch. 8)

"Capital punishment has had an up-and-down history in Russia. In the Code of the Tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich Romanov there were fifty crimes for which capital punishment could be imposed. By the time of the Military Statutes of Peter the Great there were two hundred. Yet the Empress Elizabeth, while she did not repeal those laws authorizing capital punishment, never once resorted to it. They say that when she ascended the throne she swore an oath never to execute anyone—and for all twenty years of her reign she kept that oath....And one can very easily blacken Elizabeth's reputation too; she replaced capital punishment with flogging with the knout; tearing out nostrils; branding with the word "thief"; and eternal exile in Siberia. But let us also say something on behalf of the Empress: how could she have changed things more radically than she did in contravention of the social concepts of her time?" (Solzhenitsyn, ch. 11)

It is true that while St. John Chrysostom upholds the right of the State to wield the sword of God's vengeance against its obstructers, the same Chrysostom also

"Secular judges indeed, when they have captured malefactors under the law, show their authority to be great, and prevent them even against their will from following their own devices: but in our case the wrong-doer must be made better, not by force, but by persuasion. For neither has authority of this kind for the restraint of sinners been given us by law, nor, if it had been given, should we have any field for the exercise of our power, inasmuch as God rewards those who abstain from evil by their own choice, not of necessity." (On the Priesthood, Bk. II)

While it is not of necessity for a State to restrain itself from the usage of capital punishment, the State that does successfully restrain itself is certainly rewarded. This is why the Tsars never formally abolished capital punishment even as Empress Elizabeth never executed anyone. Mary Tudor, whom Protestants taint as "Bloody Mary", put to death a total of 277, and that was due to the nature of heresy and treason being interconnected during her reign. That is far less than the numbers totaled by the Soviets!

Naturally, when the power is handed down to the masses, the masses divide themselves against each other. They desire to subdue the other. This creates demonization of the other and there is lack of unity and headship as people compete to rule and lord over each other. This is why we see mass deaths and mass bouts of immorality in revolutionary societies. They are governed not by civilization, creed, or family, but by blood-lust, power, greed, money, and evil. After all, monarchy is the best form of government that money cannot buy! So naturally, mob mentality is invoked among the revolutionaries and they turn upon each other, demonizing each other, and subduing one another. They take turns doing this as there is an inherent instability in ideology but the degradation is all the same. The downward devolution of society persists as revolutionaries take to the streets demanding whatever form of justice they foolishly believe they're not getting at a given moment. This does not happen in monarchies. Monarchies are civilized, stable, and governed by the rule of love. We are united as children to the monarch. He is not our comrade but our father and friend!

Poe's Law Strikes Again!

So today, I posted the above meme on my Facebook feed and very quickly got a sharp, "fake news" warning. CNN never put this in their clip. That's when I remembered where I first saw it was in an article from The Babylon Bee which read "Media Now Claims Shooter Was Factually Arab, But Morally White". While the article may have been making a joke, it's hard to lump this as a slanderous claim based on the way we've seen the mainstream media and CNN behave toward the past two shooting incidents. Both of them, the media was very quick to assert that "racism" played a key role in them.

While I do affirm that all crimes are essentially crimes of hate, it's important to note that, legally speaking, to be a "hate crime", one must actually have deliberate racist intent. The problem is that neither of the past two shootings in either Georgia or in Colorado possessed racist intent. The Colorado shooting does not appear to have a political or religious intent either. Though it is accurate to say that both men had political and religious problems inspiring their shootings, neither of them possessed racist intent.

The media has held this ideology though for the past year that whenever a black man is shot by an officer, the black man must have been doing everything right and posed no perceivable threat whatsoever. This has produced dangerous thinking in how we judge people. People are not to be judged based on their skin color but on the quality of their character. In many cases we have found the black man who was "minding his own business" was actively resisting arrest, was armed, in one instant, stole an officer's weapon, etc. That's not a racist statement to make. It is an observation of events. Just because someone is a shooter doesn't necessarily mean the police will shoot them. If they start firing at the cops, a shoot-out may occur and that would generally lead to the shooter's death. But if the shooter voluntarily surrenders himself to police custody when the cops arrive, they will take him peacefully.

This is what these past two shooters did. That is why both of them are still alive. And not to defend the Georgia shooter as what he did was deranged enough, but he didn't shoot the massage therapists with racist intent. This is lacking in the explanation of the shooting. Clearly this man was severely messed up. He may have benefited from having a confessor or a spiritual mentor (I guess he was Baptist so it would be the latter) but it may have helped him significantly with his sexual temptations. It seems like the church just abandoned him. But he did not possess a racist intent.

The media was quick to declare the Colorado shooter a "white man". That was factually untrue. He was Middle Eastern. He was definitely not white Caucasian which is generally what is meant when the media uses the term "white". But that didn't matter to the media. What mattered was that his skin was pale and he was taken into custody peacefully. So can we blame The Babylon Bee for this satire? Can we blame people who were misled by the photo above? Not really.

There is a law called Poe's law. It is a statement on parody. When the parody becomes so close to the reality that the difference between reality and parody is so skewed that one can no longer tell the difference between what is real and what is the parody. One can be forgiven for having thought the clip was a real CNN banner but it wasn't. It was from The Babylon Bee. But this testifies to the fact that the leftist woke media has so vilified and slandered an entire race of people, the likes of the vilification and slander having not been seen since white people did it to blacks in the 1960s, that we have reached a situation where such parody can be mistaken more easily as reality.

What scares our political elite?

A book I strongly suggest right now is The Myth of National Defense, edited by Hans-Hermann Hoppe. From the year 2003, the series of essays that are included in it contains a strong warning about the current state we have reached in recent times. It's main thesis is on national defense and the neo-conservative abuse of national defense. But the essays that it includes are well worth the time to peruse. As I was reading it the other day, I came across in the essay titled "The Will to be Free: The Role of Ideology in National Defense" by Jeffrey Rogers Hummel, the following:

"The famed zoologist Richard Dawkins has offered the intriguing proposition that ideas have striking similarities to genes. Many apparent paradoxes in biological evolution disappeared once biologists recognized that the process was driven by the success with which 'selfish' genes (rather than individuals or species) could replicate themselves. Dawkins suggested the term 'memes' be applied to ideas, whose capacity to replicate in other minds likewise determines their spread. No matter how useful this parallel between cultural and genetic evolution may ultimately prove, it at least helps to disabuse us of the illusion that an idea's validity is the sole or primary factor in its success. Those who doubt that false ideas can be tremendously influential need only glance at the worldwide success of so many mutually exclusive religions. It is not simply that they cannot all be true simultaneously; if one is true, then many of the others are not simply false, but badly false. ... The State, for instance, appears to have played no part in the birth and initial growth of Christianity, and the draconian efforts that many governments devote to the suppression of dissent testifies to the threat posed by that kind of autonomous ideological development. ... A people who have successfully fabricated the ideological solidarity necessary to overthrow their domestic rulers would be extremely difficult to conquer, as we have already observed." (291-294)

This scares our ruling class big time. Tucker Carlson compares what is going on in America right now similar to winning a tennis match in which the victors seek to smack the loser on the face. Biden won, the Democrats have majority control in both Houses of Congress, be happy! But it's a lot more complicated than that. The Democrats needed more than just to win. It's not like winning a tennis match 6-4, 1-6, 7-6, 0-6, 7-6. You just barely eked out a close victory getting decimated in a couple of rounds on the way, but you won, your opponent has no victory claim. It's not like that. For the Democrats, this is an ideological war. Ideas can spread like a wildfire and with increasing polarization, Democrats are well aware that an electoral college victory of 306-232 is not enough to win against the will of 74,000,000 voters that are charged against their ideologies. They need to make certain this ideology of "Trumpism" cannot spread ever again. They won't care about nullifying the Constitution on the way. They can interject their own interpretations after all. The goal is to win the ideological war and Trumpism has proven a most formidable opponent against the establishment philosophy of permanent Washington. For the establishment neo-cons, Trumpism isn't just something to beat in an election, it is something that needs to die out permanently. The damage to the establishment caused by this ideology isn't going away any time soon.

The Demon in Democracy - Ryszard Legutko

This book was extremely relevant and important in light of the current political climate we face today. The subtitle is Totalitarian Temptations in a Free Society. That free society is defined by the author, Ryszard Legutko, as a liberal democracy. Lgutko, aside from having suffered under Polish communistic dictatorship, has also held an active role in the European Union's Parliament. He gives a stark warning about the temptations that creep up in a liberal democracy and draws strong comparisons between the two forms of government throughout the duration of his book. Not just the forms of government but the ideology and political theory they obsess over.

He starts by laying out his own introduction of his life experience. His life experience is important as this shows his qualifications in judging the matter. His position as a professor of ancient philosophy and political theory. His position in the European Parliament. And his sufferings under Polish communistic dictatorship. Indeed, he was actually a product of recent censorship back in 2019 when the Alexander Hamilton Forum tried to have him give a lecture at Middlebury College. The warnings he gives about the temptations should not be taken with a grain of salt.

The ideology starts with the warped end of history view. Both liberal democracies and communist dictatorships see their era of history as the most progressive and incrementally driven forward of all historical eras. This pattern continues as they see one era of history as more progressive than the next and gradually driving toward their goal. They view those who are romantic toward another era of history as being backward, a threat to their goal toward progress. This view of history leads both liberal democratic ideology and communistic ideology into a form of utopianism. They view their systems of dogma as politically superior to all the rest. Any one who questions it is taken as a traitor or an attacker of the most perfect form of government and should be annihilated.

The utopian vision both philosophies hold leads them to sharing and investing in similar if not identical politics. They view the politics of the nation as the one doctrine that everybody should hold to. All matters of life should center around the communal activities of the communist government or the shared vision of the democratic state. Those who oppose this or cast doubt on the processes are seen as traitors. They claim the goal is to liberate man from politics but in doing so, they have made man even more political than before.

They ingrain this ideology in through education and the political system. They reinforce an ideology of the duty that man has to his government. It revolves around either the majority or the dictatorship or both. The ideology is intended to subject man. While glamorizing how dignified man is, this dignity is degraded into his relationship with the government and is stripped of the moral context that it is meant to remain in. From this, we navigate to religion.

Religion is held in contempt by both communists and liberal democracies. Liberal democracies claim to be multicultural but the thing that gets in the way most with this is the transcendent aspect of religion. If religion holds a central role, it puts man under a different governance than the majority. Communists have declared it to be the opium of the people hopeful that it will die out. Liberal democracies seek to subvert religion. Warping it into obeisance to the liberal democracy first and foremost. Religious people seek to conform their religion to the liberal democracy or even to the communistic regime hoping it will appease the blood-thirsty tyrants seeking to stamp it out. He gives a strong condemnation of the changes brought to the Catholic Church by Vatican II. He points out that even as the Church tried to capitulate to the world, it still remained hated and in disgust.

There is a hopeful note to be gained from this. A genuine practitioner of religion is not only seen as a threat to the liberal democratic regime and communistic regime, but it was ultimately religion that capsized communism. It may very well be religion which will capsize the liberal democratic onslaught of modern times as well. It may take years, even decades, but with the considerations of the lessons we have gathered from recent history, only a genuine religious and moral ethos appears to be formidable in combatting the system of liberal democracy. This book is strongly recommended.

Liberal Democracy and Free Speech

The most fundamental concept of a liberal democracy is free speech. Free speech enables rational discussion, the dissemination of ideas, and enables people to build and develop their rational thought. Baruch de Spinoza maintained as much in regard to preserving a liberal democracy. "Every man is 'by indefeasible natural right the master of his own thoughts', and he 'cannot, without disastrous results, be compelled to speak only according to the dictates of the supreme power'" (F.C. Copleston, A History of Philosophy, vol. IV, 258). Government's duty is to promote the individual liberties to develop. While there are limits such as the prohibition of direct incitements to violence and disruption, "rational discussion and criticism do good rather than harm" and "[i]f the attempt is made to crush liberty and to regiment thought and speech...the result is that fools, flatterers, the insincere and unscrupulous flourish" (258). Free speech is essential for progress and intellectual development.

Ludwig von Mises also thought along similar lines in Human Action. All governments are inherently democratic in that the majority tend to submit to them. But if the majority prefer bad leaders, "is committed to unsound principles and prefers unworthy office-seekers, there is no remedy other than to try to change their mind by expounding more reasonable principles and recommending better men" (150). It is the dialogue that pushes onward the effort to place better men in power. But if the dialogue is lost, then the State begins to form into a quasi-theological belief system in which obeisance is awarded to the State at a religious level.

Free speech is fundamental to preserving the free exchange of ideas, allowing people to think what is already on their mind and to say it. The State has not the power to control the actions of an individual man. You decide whether you follow the State's doctrines or not. Only by force can they actually punish you for "wrongthink" or "wrongspeak". But the State has no power or authority to dictate what you can say. "In Soviet Russia, we have freedom of speech! You just get thrown into gulag if you say something the State doesn't like!" How accurate.

In light of the recent events from the Big Tech world, I draw great concern about this area. I am currently platformed but many people are being deplatformed. You might argue that it is a private entity. These Big Tech entities are private entities. And I also concur. But what we are witnessing is a thorough dive into what would be a State-planned economy. A system of State capitalism. This is what we have seen in Soviet Russia. The private entities conglomerating together with the State to set up rules for how to restrain themselves when what they really intend to do is restrain competitors. If this direction continues, it will get to the point where these Big Tech entities are more than just private entities. They will be agents of the State. Google is already an agent of China. So are many Big Tech enterprises. Imagine if they become agents of the State cooperating to do the State's biddings. We are seeing that happen as they huddle under the Democratic Party. The move toward State capitalism must be opposed with vigor.

The Leveling is Coming

"[T]he less idea there is an age, the more the age will vacillate between volatile enthusiasm (which creates heroes and geniuses of the moment) and indolence, and leveling becomes all the more a decadent urge, a sensate stimulation that excites momentarily and only makes matters worse, rescue more difficult, and the probability of destruction greater. ... Now everything is arranged so that rabble-barbarism can have its day. ... [T]he public keeps a dog for its amusement. This dog is the contemptible part of the literary world. If a superior person shows up, perhaps even a man of distinction, the dog is goaded to attack him and the witty fun begins. If it were really witty, really elevating, or even something noble conceived in dspair, it would be wrong and the public would cease to be base. But now everything is arranged. The nasty dog tears at his coattails, indulges in all sorts of rough tricks⁠—until the public is tired of it and says: That is enough now." Søren Kierkegaard, Pap. VII B 123 n.d., 1845-46

The cure is quickly becoming worse than the disease at the moment. It may already have been that for the moment. The latest plot by our leaders is to pay off those who have been crushed by the State with money from other people. This is the current leveling. Sure, it is income equality. We shall be secure financially, but what has been done is leading us to greater destruction. I won't say too much on this topic for Kierkegaard has put into writing what I have been unable to put into words. The State has taken no responsibility. Will the State accept responsibility? No, it will assert the cat did it. The responsibility therefore is on the cat to build up what the State has destroyed. This is flat-out evil, it is sinister. Whether it's in "combatting racism" or in providing stimulus checks, it seems the State has decided to manufacture this fictional entity of the public to promote their benefit for when they speak of "common good" it seems odd that those benefitting appear to only be members of the State and their allies in society. At any rate, to destroy livelihoods is inexcusable terrorism. That the State is at fault for that is clear for no virus or beast ever ordered the crushing of livelihoods. But the State's solution is to destroy the lives of more taxpayers just so it can promote the "welfare of the nation". It will print more money, pay more checks to its citizens, hike tax rates. The train we are on is veering to a wall that will destroy us. It must be rammed off the tracks somehow. For destruction, the State has embraced the idea that more destruction is necessary to repair the damages. We are not looking at a mere government here. We are looking at something far more comparable to that beast of the sea from Revelation. More dupes will generate the foolish propaganda that taxation continues to be necessary. More dupes will continue to inject the idea we need to promote more government welfare to care for our brothers. More dupes will continue to carry out this lie. What is happening right now is the State has been caught in the action of its wrongfulness. It can't hide it any more. So it will continue to lie and cheat to cover up its ass.

The Badass Governor of Virginia

Official Seal for the Governor of Virginia

I think we have established something today with Governor Northam's new strain of House Arrest orders. He is super badass. Really badass. Absolutely sensational. That Governor Newsom guy in Cantifornia has nothing on him. Governor Commie-o over in New York? Weakling! They can only figure out a way to shutdown coronavirus for 17 hours. Northam? He can shut it down for 19 hours! 19 hours. That's an entire two hours longer!

Cooltrainer Gavin can stop the virus for
24 hours...but only for himself.

I always knew that guy could do much better than those piles of trash. No one knows exactly when this sharpshooting match between Governor Oakley and his friends started but it may trace all the way back to early 2019 when Governor Commie-o issued the challenge and said, "Any evil you can do, I can do better!" And New York put up pink colors to commemorate the fact that it legalized the murder of children up to 24 weeks in the womb. Governor Northam said, "Look at me! I can kill 'em off post-natal!" Some have wondered if it's not too late for Northam's mother to have an abortion on him.

Northam in his first medical mask.

Not to mention, Northam is a huge mask fanatic. Northam, a pediatrician by profession (which in Bizarro World means infanticidal maniac), knows how effective masks are. He started wearing one back when he studied at the Virginia Military Institute. Northam is so safe with masks as a doctor, his mask covers his whole face as to prevent himself from touching any part of it save for two cut-out holes for his eyes to see through. Well, I guess he's got one for his mouth too in case he needs to play the tuba. Northam is the safest governor of all with masks. He prefers to wear a white mask in the shape of a pointy hood. Virginians know this quite well about Northam. Did you know he still ended up being infected? As it turns out, you can be safe all you want and still get infected. Bummer. It's like we have no control of this virus.

Not spreading COVID-19. He's wearing a mask!

But never fear! We have it under control for 19 hours now! A whole damn 19 hours! Our Governor is like Super Northam for doing this. Unlike Cooltrainer Gavin over in Cantifornia and Governor Commie-o in New York, he has it under control longer. Only at midnight does this scientifically confirmed to be nocturnal virus spread. If we didn't have curfews, this nocturnal virus would prowl around hunting for unsuspecting victims. In fact, it's 100% likely from here on out that in Virginia all COVID-19 cases will be from people who unfortunately made it home only 1 minute after midnight. It will be sad to see so many stragglers dying of this horrible disease that they could have so easily avoided by heading home a whole 2 minutes earlier.

But admit it, we have a badass governor, don't we? Cooltrainer Gavin and Governor Commie-o can only stop it for 17 hours. Their poor denizens have to make it home by 10:00pm or the sinister COVID-19 which lurks the shadows will come out and pounce on his victims. Governor Northam, he can stop it until midnight. Shame that he can't stop it for an additional five hours. Maybe we'll bio-engineer a governor who can some day. Or maybe we'll just get a dumbass like Governor Northam.

Official logo of the United States Dumbasses