70 thoughts on “Boycott anti-Christmas department store, Boscov’s”
Boscov’s was OK with Hanukkah event at the store This is from several years ago so perhaps the store has decided to eliminate all association with religious holidays. Or perhaps it hasn’t:
Aside from all of the holiday activities affiliated with local area temples, Boscov’s Department store will be hosting a Hanukkah party on December 12. At the request of Boscov’s, the Jewish Family and Children’s Services of Monmouth County will be hosting the Hanukkah party, which is intended for the general public. The event will begin at 6:30 p.m. and will be held at Boscov’s Department store in the Monmouth Mall in their Community Room. At the party, members of the general public can light the candles of the Menorah, play dreide l games, listen to a storyteller, and watch Monmouth County folk dancers perform. The Jewish Family and Children’s Services is excited about the party and hopes that many of you from the public can attend this celebratory event.
Doesn’t matter to me if a store or anyone else selects which groups to support. But we all know if the situation were reversed what would happen.{
The link from the majorityrights post… … says this:
“Boscov’s was founded by Solomon Boscov in 1911 and is owned by the families of Albert Boscov and Edwin Lakin.”
So, presumably, the founders and current owners both are Jewish; the point is, they’ll carry Hanukkah greeting cards, but not ones saying “Merry Christmas”, which is an attack on the faith of the majority of Americans, and likely, the majority of those purchasing things in December of each year. So it’s clearly a bigoted double standard. But money talks, so if people in Reading, PA and nearby vote with their dollars, by not spending them there, and by complaining and letting them know that’s why, it may force them to change their minds; if they don’t, they’ll just have to suffer the loss of business their stance results in.
Bocov’s founded in 1911 but growth came in 60s. The expansion came later according to this article. It says Albie Boscov’s first store burned down in the 1960s after which he began a massive advertising campaign and sponsored the first Black Heritage Festival in Pennsylvania Dutch Country.
Sounds like an Identity Politics kinda guy.
Re: I knows an even worse situation… In Harvard Business School Review,I have reads a jew woman filed a lawsuit against a holy bible study group in her corporation,made by workers in their offtime because it makes her feel excluded. When christiansin america will realizes who their real enemy is…
It seems to me the real enemy It seems to me the real enemy is a way of thinking that sets up neutrality as a standard to be enforced by government on all social relations. There are always minorities who don’t like what most people do and would stop it if they could. So the key question is what the institutional arrangements and understandings are that empower such people.
Rem tene, verba sequentur.
The courts are Exhibit #A.
The courts are Exhibit #A.
Various affirmative action schemes, abortion and the purging of faith from the public square—three of the left’s favorite things—have been imposed upon society in part, or entirely, by judges.
But there is hope. All of Bush’s nominations to the Fedeal Bench are good. Best crop in my lifetime. Consider Justice Brown’s speech to the Federalist Society:
Everything it demonstrates C. Carlson is right! and Israel Shamir too!.Reads about more atrocities as it in:whtt.org
Jews are our Friends not that the commentator necessarily thinks otherwise. (Somehow my immediate post did not get through weeks ago.) The number of non-Jewish people in accord with some Jewish people is so vast and overwhelming in number, I cannot see the reason for the inference that Jewish people are somehow a decisive moral liability for non-Jewish behavior or, better yet, reaction. What would a Christian (who believes the Jewish Messiah has already come) expect from people who believe Christ was not the Jewish Messiah?
Christians perhaps should trust in the final judgment of Jesus, a Jewish person and part of the Trinity. It is not sensible to conclude Jewishness is responsible for whatever situation we relatively enormously-numbered non-Jewish people find ourselves.
Liberalism is perhaps a cause of our disregard of race, culture, or religion but not because liberals are morons. Liberals can think. I saw a recent example tonight on the liberal program (that I never watch) where Martin Sheen is the President. A regular—a short, balding small man—recited a litany of incontrovertible reasons for the speciousness of the charge we are not “nice†to Arabs. (His style reminds me of Al Pacino.) So liberals are not stupid or ignorant, just biased. Let’s not mimic their behavior by blaming Jewish people for America’s woes. We are so lucky to not be in Israel’s situation, perhaps we should be thinking of ways to help Israel, not that we should write a blank check.
Christian who happen to be jews or arabs are our brothers but jews and arabs who are no christians must to be evangelized;USA as secular country/reads node America as Kingdom of God on Earth/,makes political decisions that can be hurtful to another countries,please visit comeandsee.co.il for more info.
Would if Could I would join the boycott if I could, but I am located in the Deep South. We have only the big three TV networks, Disney, and Google (for its refusal to take anti-abortion ads) to boycott.
Opinion is Interested I am interested and will check them out. I have been using Alta Vista exclusively, but I will gladly try traditionalist engines of the Christian or Jewish persuasion. Thanks for the tip.
Boycott Olympic games too!
‘Boycott Beijing Olympics’ Campaign Launched
By Patrick Goodenough
CNSNews.com London Bureau Chief
August 21, 2001
London (CNSNews.com) – A press freedom group Tuesday launched a campaign to generate international support for a boycott of the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, because of China’s human rights record.
Reporters Sans Frontieres (Reporters Without Borders) conceded that without the backing of major governments a boycott would never materialize, but said a campaign had to begin somewhere.
The organization has set up a href=”http://www.boycottbeijing2008.net “websites in English and French, and it is encouraging Internet users to sign a petition.
“Given the massive human rights violations in China, it seems unacceptable to us that the Chinese government be allowed the right to host the world’s most prestigious sporting event,” it reads in part.
The petition is addressed to U.N. member states, which are urged to publicly voice their disapproval of the International Olympic Committee’s decision to grant the 2008 Games to Beijing, and to support a boycott.
The Paris-based group said the reasons used to justify a U.S.-led boycott by around 60 nations of the 1980 Olympics in Moscow were relevant in Beijing’s case too.
As the Soviet Union had invaded Afghanistan, so too has China taken possession of Tibet, Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia, it said, charging that the Chinese today infringes human rights more vigorously than the Soviets had done in the late 1970s.
“The Olympic movement was discredited in 1936, when it allowed the Nazis to make the Games a spectacle to glorify the Third Reich,” said RSF. “In 1980, in Moscow, the IOC suffered a terrible defeat when more than 50 countries boycotted the Olympics.
“In 2008, the international sporting movement must refuse to tolerate one of the world’s bloodiest dictatorships.”
‘We have to find other ways’
RSF, which monitors and reports on infringements of press freedom worldwide, says China is a major violator of this and other basic human rights.
Since the IOC selected Beijing as host city in mid-July, it said, repression in China had not eased.
“As long as the Chinese government does not release political prisoners, refuses to have negotiations with the [exiled Tibetan leader] Dalai Lama and does not put an end to censorship, our campaign will not stop,” said RSF general secretary Robert M’e9nard.
RSF spokesman Vincent Brossel said from Paris Tuesday the group recognized the enormity of the challenge, but was already picking up support in Europe and North America, especially among sportsmen.
Some Tibetan groups and exiled Chinese dissident have also voiced their support for the boycott campaign, he said.
Brossel conceded that leading human rights groups, such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, were unlikely to support the campaign.
But new tactics had to be found, he insisted. “Each year human rights organizations go to Geneva to try to see China condemned by the U.N. Human Rights Commission. Every year we are depressed, because China is too strong. We have to find other ways, and I think the pressure that civil society can put on our governments is very important.”
Brossel noted that European countries and the U.S. had been “very quiet” after the IOC voted in favor of Beijing on July 13.
“They said, ‘We don’t know if it’s good news, but we hope it will help [improve] human rights and have a positive impact.’ But they have to do more, they have to set some conditions,” he argued.
The Americans and Europeans knew that diplomatic pressure on China had in the past proved highly effective in persuading the authorities to free pro-democracy activists, he said.
Brossel challenged the view that hosting the Olympics may force the Chinese to improve their human rights record. In recent meetings with prominent Soviet-era dissidents in Russia, he said, he had learnt that this had not been the case in the Soviet Union in 1980.
The Moscow Olympics had no positive effect at all, they told him. The only good thing to come out of the episode was the boycott, which had awoken many Soviet citizens to the realization that their country was out of step with much of the international community.
“It’s completely wrong to say the Olympic Games helped with the democratization of Russia. It was the boycott itself that had the impact.”
Brossel said it was too early to say how the campaign would go, and how much support the petition would generate. Also, much could happen in the seven years between now and the Beijing Olympics.
But he expressed optimism that the boycott strategy could be an effective one.
“A lot of people like to watch the Olympic Games. Maybe they will be conscious that if it is in Beijing, it will be shameful. People do not like to have a bad conscience, to see that the athletes are enjoying the Games, but at the same time people are in jail and in Tibet the repression is going on.
“We have to act more on the conscience of people, and I think they will follow our initiative.”
In his 1981 book, Political History of the Olympic Games, author David B. Kanin wrote that while the Moscow boycott did not succeed in moving the Games from the Soviet capital, it did rob the authorities of the sense of international legitimacy hosting the Games normally confers on the host country.
“There was no way for the Soviet government to hide from its people the depth of anger over Afghanistan, nor to embellish an event now largely reduced to the level of a Warsaw Pact inter-army game,” Kanin wrote.
“This does not mean that Soviet citizens began to question government policy, only that they knew that many countries doubted Soviet explanations of it.”
Wait for more post related,there are catholic conservatives who support it,click in rutherford.org about abortion issue in china informations.
The Olympics should be boycotted, anyway, period… … I’ve done so for the last few Olympiads; I can’t stand the pagan, “one world”, humanist ethos; not to mention the doping and steroids; the politicized, biased judging; the overly commercial nature of it all; the corrupt IOC’s decision-making processes (whoever wines them and dines them best, buys them off)…
Evidently, the paganism was even more explicit than ever before, in the recent Athenian Olympics’ opening ceremonies, with an artistic dance/performance-art homage to Zeus, or so I read… (Mind you, in the last Olympics I watched, I didn’t like the sumo wrestlers in Nagano ceremonially “purifying” the stadium, whatever the heck that means. Of course, it could be that I simply don’t care to see big giant fat pony-tailed men in diapers, but hey, that’s me…)
Politics, and boycotts over political reasons, have always been part and parcel of the Olympics, and have always produced distorted results…
Corporate sponsorship of Olympic events have reached such ridiculously all-encompassing levels that people were banned from bringing non-sponsor food items onto the grounds in Athens…
I see nothing positive about the Olympics, that can’t be accomplished in simply having international amateur competitions for each of the sports in question – and without professional “dream team” athletes unfairly being allowed to compete against amateurs…
I hate the Olympics; there’s a million and one reasons to dislike them, and few valid reasons to like them, IMO. Boycott them, period… If that makes me a spoilsport, a curmudgeon despite my relatively small number of years, oh well…
China bans Christmas joy in Shanghai media Financial Times (12/03/04):
The Shanghai media has been ordered to play down any stories that promote Christmas, a celebration the city’s propaganda chiefs worry may come to rival traditional Chinese festivals. The directive was contained this week in on e of the regular missives that the propaganda department sends out to all . . .continued hereˇ¿
How would we like it if Buddhism rivaled Christianity here? The Chinese must not appreciate being culturally colonized by us any more than we’d appreciate being culturally colonized by them. I see nothing wrong with China’s authorities trying to limit the growth of Christmas (just as I see everything wrong with certain forces in this country trying to stamp Christmas out).
Notice how appealing must be what in reality amounts to the Christmas spirit. Someone in the article says Christmas in China is purely commercial. No. It’s the other way around. Things have to be extremely appealing first, then they can be commercial. Unappealing things don’t entice people into stores to make purchases.
One Chinaman quoted in the article says the expansion of Christmas there is inevitable. That seems somehow not right—makes me, for one, feel uneasy. There’s supposed to be a China in the world. And the China there’s supposed to be doesn’t celebrate Christmas (just as the Europe there’s supposed to be does). China is supposed to be Buddhist, not Christian. I’d feel more comfortable if the missionaries out there all came home.
Given Christmas’s strength, think what the Christmas haters, those trying to stamp Christmas out here, are up against.
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“If a tree falls and an expert doesn’t hear it, is there a sound?” Yes, the sweetest, most melodious sound in all creation: the sound of entropy being brought clanking, screeching, grinding to a halt.
China is not supposed to be Christian? Mr. Scrooby, your statement about China and Christianity really encapsulates everything that is wrong with integralist traditionalism as an ideology. Cultural universalism is an obvious error, but so is every form traditionalism and particularism which excludes Christianity. Men are different, yes—but not that different. As John Henry Newman told the world, every man was “born to be a Catholic.”
Please don’t consider me a spokesman for anything I’m no spokesman for traditionalism. No doubt I’m getting it wrong in lots of ways. I’m also a different kind of Christian than many of the good people who post here—a worse one, I’m sure.
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“If a tree falls and an expert doesn’t hear it, is there a sound?” Yes, the sweetest, most melodious sound in all creation: the sound of entropy being brought clanking, screeching, grinding to a halt.
What I want from Christians like Mr. Culbreath Mr. Culbreath, since you mention “forms of traditionalism and particularism which exclude Christianity,” and having very vividly in mind my conversations with you some months ago (I’m “Unadorned”), I’ll add if I may that all I would like from Christians like you is an admission that Christianity does not consider it wrong for people to prefer to preserve the racial and ethno-cultural identies of their communities and nations and to take reasonable steps in that direction.
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“If a tree falls and an expert doesn’t hear it, is there a sound?” Yes, the sweetest, most melodious sound in all creation: the sound of entropy being brought clanking, screeching, grinding to a halt.
Christianity and Racial Preservation Hello Unadorned. Yes, I remember our discussions. The problem with any racial/ethnic preservation policy in America (I assume you are talking about public policy here) is that it would almost certainly have to subordinate greater goods. That is, things like national unity, civic unity, regional unity, family unity, religious unity, etc., would be torn asunder in the name of racial or ethnic preservation.
If this is not the case – if racial preservation in your view would NOT require breaking up existing social units – then I’m not sure what you mean by “racial preservation” exactly.
If you are just saying that you think immigration should from henceforth be restricted to whites only, well, that doesn’t do much for racial prervation since there already exist multi-racial social units in place and functioning well. Something will have to be done about them too.
Where does it end? We are slowly and methodically being homogenized into a brainwashed society of valueless pedagogues. We rant and pontificate about the dilution of our values and beliefs but are unwilling to remove the pathogens that are eating into the body of our religion, values, family structure and other cornerstones of moral based living. Think about it the next time you click on the TV or pop in a movie or pickup a magazine. Think about it as the stream of unending conditioning is absorbed into your eyes – your children’s eyes – and as the commercial assault on your being slowly tears away your ideas about what used to be considered embarrassing or taboo or off-limits or vulgar or unacceptable. Think about it as you watch celebrities and the neo-elite living in a state of public moral degradation as they openly and purposely abuse and corrupt our legal and political systems. Our regulating bodies determine that we shouldn’t hear four letter words before 10:00 pm but the airwaves are full of blasphemy and vulgarity used as punctuation and emphasis in everything from news broadcasts to cartoons. Taking the lords name in vain is as common and as acceptable as promiscuous sex, references to violence, death and murder and the wholesale assault on religious beliefs.
From the perspective of the devil, who could have guessed that his most audacious attacks would come in the most subtle of forms? Parents are scared to send their children to the bathroom at McDonalds alone for fear of abduction or molestation yet we allow our children to be morally assailed everyday on their way to secular schools. Schools that treat faith, hope and charity like medieval abominations while they promote evolution, faithless atmospheres that won’t allow the pledge of allegiance, and the absurdity of gay proms and sexual education that teaches one view only. Where does it end? How do we open our eyes? How have we gone so far from the morals that created the ‘greatest generation’ in such a short amount of time? Think about it.
Is the cost of a return to sanity the removal of all distractions? “The devil’s snare doesn’t catch you unless you are already nibbling at the devil’s bait.†– St. Ambrose of Milan
So shall each of us who refuses to bend become ten thousand, for day is dawning.
No generation is excused from having to fight for what it loves. The blessing for our generation is the lightness of the burden we carry, of the responsibility history has placed on our shoulders, compared to the burden borne by those saints and faithful who went before, who were called upon to “go into the gulf of death unterrified.” The burden history has thrust upon us compared to that is an easy one.
It’s a burden we, each of us, can shoulder.
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“If a tree falls and an expert doesn’t hear it, is there a sound?” Yes, the sweetest, most melodious sound in all creation: the sound of entropy being brought clanking, screeching, grinding to a halt.
Yes Fred I was snide I’m a victim of society. What can I say? Never thought I would end up here but the death threats got to me. I simply don’t care anymore. S?
Race and Christianity I don’t expect I will agree with Big Brother’s view about race anytime soon, but who knows if I allow him to work on me. Big Brother seems to rely on the premise that race is a morally repulsive factor one ought not to consider in deciding what to do next. He might be right. I don’t have a syllogism to prove him wrong, not that we are governed by a philosophical construct in any event.
There is evidence to the contrary though. Birds of a feather flock together. Races segregate themselves. Races are manifestly different: they look different, act differently, and are intellectually different.
Is racial preference a base instinct such as theft, adultery, murder, or envy? Not that I know of. Maybe someone can make a case for the proposition that racial preference violates one of the Ten Commandments.
In any event, I would be delighted to hear rebuttals.
Liberal on Race? Lest anyone think I’m dodging Mr. Scrooby’s question, I should come right out and admit that I don’t think race is something that needs preserving for its own sake. Racial and ethnic groups change with every marital union. The pace and degree of change may be controlled by various means, but I think this sort of thing is best regulated by the families and individuals involved.
(Cue “Somali Bantu” immigration argument.)
Yes, about those Bantus. Let me just state for the record that the immigration of any people with formidable language, religion, and culture barriers – apart from an effective assimilation apparatus – is a bad idea. Unless, of course, there is a greater good involved, which is certainly possible (e.g., saving lives).
(Cue “But the Somali Bantus are unassimilable” argument.)
Yes, about assimilation. I don’t know enough about the Bantus to have good opinion, but I suspect that most human beings under 30 years of age, living anywhere in the world, are capable of enough assimilation to be functional in American society. Not perfect assimilation, but sufficient assimilation.
I’m an American, and America is a land with people from all over. That’s the America that greeted me from Day One, and I accept it for what it is. There’s nothing inherently good or bad about this. Racial “diversity” is neither strength nor, necessarily, weakness. What is important is that Americans of all races forge enough of a common culture to revive our civilization. If that is not possible on a national level, then it should forged on a local level, not along racial lines, but along religious and cultural lines.
Finally … … a direct answer. Sorry it took so long.
Christianity, as I understand it, does not forbid anyone from preferring one particular racial identity or taking “reasonable steps” to preserve that identity. The problem is that there is usually more to the question than this.
The Christian religion always goes to motive. Christ our King always asks, “Why?” I think this is where racialism usually breaks down. The Christian racialist will say only that he prefers, say, whites, because he is white himself, and that he believes races are good things in themselves and worthy of preservation just as they are. Good so far. But that really isn’t enough. Christianity doesn’t just say “Y has value”, it says that “Y has more value than X and less value than Z”. That is, to choose Y over Z would be wrong from a Christian point of view, and racial preservation, in the language of most racialists, usually involves just that.
So we are faced not just with the question of racial preservation as a value, but racial preservation as one value among many competing values. Christianity has something to say about this.
Thank you In the first two parts of that three-part response you said essentially that you weren’t interested in “race” or races as such. That’s OK. That’s legitimate—there are plenty of people who either don’t see races or just aren’t interested in them. We’re all made differently.
From the third part:
“Christianity, as I understand it, does not forbid anyone from preferring one particular racial identity or taking ‘reasonable steps’ to preserve that identity. […] The Christian [normal person may] say […] that he prefers, say, whites, because he is white himself, and that he believes races are good things in themselves and worthy of preservation just as they are. Good so far.”
That much I got. The rest of part three I didn’t understand but don’t repeat it. It’s OK. Let’s leave it at that …
Thank you.
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“If a tree falls and an expert doesn’t hear it, is there a sound?” Yes, the sweetest, most melodious sound in all creation: the sound of entropy being brought clanking, screeching, grinding to a halt.
“In Michigan’s historic Village of Franklin, they used to have a Holly Day Festival this time of year. But now they have progressed to calling it the Franklin Winter Festival. Why? Because as Les Gorback said (he is a prominent store owner who pushed for the name change), ‘Holly Day had the connotation it was strictly a Christmas holiday festival.’ Gorback said, ‘we wanted to try to make it more inclusive, so we changed the name.’ Why he didn’t simply move to cancel Christmas, he did not say.”
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“The latest Newsweek poll shows that 84 percent of Americans are Christian; Jews represent less than two percent. In other words, the U.S. is more Christian than Israel is Jewish (approximately 72 percent of Israelis are Jewish), yet it is Christmas, not Hanukkah, that is considered controversial to celebrate.”
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“If a tree falls and an expert doesn’t hear it, is there a sound?” Yes, the sweetest, most melodious sound in all creation: the sound of entropy being brought clanking, screeching, grinding to a halt.
I think the elites’ anti-Christmas attitudes show that… … it’s high time Christians pulled their children from public schools, and instead place them into religious or traditionalist private schools (or homeschool them)… Of course, these may not be viable options for all, but everyone should consider: sending kids to public schools means sending them into the hands of the anti-Christian elite, who will have them for about 6-8 hours a day (or whatever it is), and hence plenty of time to indoctrinate them with liberalism…
I’m assuming that most private and Roman Catholic schools (and Protestant schools, etc.) won’t have these crazy anti-Christmas attitudes, but of course, perhaps some of them might be infected, too… In any event, I do know a Christian couple who pulled their kids out of a Christian school, and sent them back into the public school system, since they were being taught gross theological errors in that particular Christian school, and they felt it was more damaging for their kids to be exposed to error which they might accept uncritically (given that it was a Christian school, and hence supposedly doctrinally sound), rather than the errors of the public school system, which, in their particular experience, were actually less bad than those they’d encountered in that Christian school, and moreover, they could more easily set their kids straight, since their kids would have a healthy skepticism, or willingness to check things out with their folks, knowing public education’s biases…
So, despite my first paragraph in this post, and despite my previous stated opinion some time ago, http://jkalb.freeshell.org/posts/board/messages//7.html here, I recognize there isn’t a one single right answer universally applicable, and that everyone will have to consider their particular situation, and decide accordingly.
No surprises, really; Abraham Foxman and his ilk in the ADL are anti-Christian bigots, plain and simple. They seem to think opposing anti-Semitism entails opposing public expression of Christianity…
It never stops. Some Christma It never stops. Some Christmas cheer. “The Passion” used as a lead in to a film about Hitler:
Snap Judgment: The Passion of the Fuehrer
Jerusalem Post
12/14/04
Calev Ben-david
Someone at the Tel Aviv Cinematheque either lacked good sense or has a sense of humor (or both) in deciding to schedule on December 24, Christmas Eve, the premiere public screening in Israel of Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ . . .what I find funny (disturbing, not ha-ha) is that I can hardly think of a ny movie less in the “Christmas spirit” this side of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre . . .continued here
Michael Medved made an observation yesterday on (Laura Ingraham’s radio show about the animonsity to the film. He said all the criticisms from many (antisemitic, not true to the Gospels, a “Chainsaw Massacre” etc) are insincere. It is loathed for one reason only: The Passion is pro-Christian. That alone is why it is being shunned for awards.e
This item should not have been published without further facts When someone—not Will S.—a week ago sent me this same item that Mr. Kalb has allowed Will to link, I replied to my correspondent that there were no facts here, only a fragmentary report by one person writing one incomplete e-mail. I told my correspondent that he couldn’t repeat these claims as true, let alone call for a “Christian boycott of Boscov’s”— in the absence of more solid evidence. This was all the more so since the claim is extremely unlikely on the face of it. Does anyone really believe that a major department store simply banned all holiday cards using the word Christmas? It’s inconceivable, and I think any reasonably prudent and fairminded person would not accept it as true in the absence of established facts confirming it to be true.
Here is the entire e-mail on which the claim is based, and which apparently many people are simply accepting as true:
“Boscov’s displays gift cards for sale throughout the store. The Christmas gift card only says “Merry”, because any reference to the word “Christmas” is banned at Boscov’s. However, it is side-by-side with a “HAPPY HANUKKAH” card. Please encourage all Christians to boycott Boscov’s. Please help spread the word soon, as Boscov’s makes the bulk of their annual profits selling the very Christmas gifts they refuse to acknowledge.”
The first thing that leaps out is, does it make sense that Boscov would print cards that only say “Merry”? This frankly sounds like something concocted by a subnormal person, like something you’d expect to see if Monty Python made a movie about anti-Semites.
PC leads down strange paths Kwanzaa is apparently de rigueur in the world of PC—you see it everywhere on AOL for example, always side-by-side with Hannukah and Christmas. The leftists at AOL never leave it out. Might Boscov’s have left the “Merry …” greeting incomplete so that people could fill in “Merry Kwanzaa”?
If that’s the explanation, they probably should get boycotted anyway—but for having extremely bad taste, not for suppressing Christmas …
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“If a tree falls and an expert doesn’t hear it, is there a sound?” Yes, the sweetest, most melodious sound in all creation: the sound of entropy being brought clanking, screeching, grinding to a halt.
PC Watch now admits the charge against Boscov’s is false The updated information posted at PC Watch which Will S. has linked, evidently in response to my criticism of his original posting, indicates that it is not greeting cards at Boscov’s that lack the word “Christmas,” but rather some kind of credit card-sized item called a gift card that is used for purchases in the store. These little credit cards say “Merry” followed by a Christmas style image. I said last night that it was impossible that Boscov’s had no greeting cards with the word Christmas. My statement has turned out to be correct. PC Watch’s charge has been reduced to complaining that the gift cards for “Happy Hannukah” have the word “Hannukah,” but the gift cards for “Merry” just have Christmas decorations instead of the word “Christmas.” That is still objectionable, but it is an order of magnitude less objectionable than the charge that the store has excluded all greetings cards with the word Christmas. The lack of symmetry concerning the gift cards justifies complaints to the store, it does not justify a “Christian boycott” of the store.
Will S. posted his ridiculous and false charges and the call for a “Christian boycott” against Boscov’s almost a week ago. Why did no reader of this forum notice the absurdity of the charge until I came along and pointed it out? Are we now living in the age of the Blood Libel, when any charge against Jews of committing some anti-Christian act, no matter how ridiculous and unbelievable the charge is, is automatically believed?
And, while both PC Watch and Will S. deserve credit for coming forth with the truth, notice the _way_ that they deal with the truth. Instead of saying, “We blew it, we published this e-mail and accepted its statements, even though what the e-mail said was unbelievable on its face,” instead of admitting any of that, they simply post, without comment, the updated information, while still acting as if the lack of symmetry in the gift cards is as serious as a lack of symmetry in greeting cards.
That’s what Maureen Dowd did after her misleading and false quotation of President Bush (making him appear to say the opposite of what he had actually said) was exposed. Instead of retracting and apologizing for her previous false quotation, she simply published the correct quote without comment. That is cowardly at best. It is the mark of the type of person who, even though one particular bigoted and false comment of his has been exposed, cannot apologize for it, because he still clings to the bigotry that led him to publish it in the first place.
Here is the updated information at PC Watch which Will S. linked:
My reader clarifies what is happening: “Actually, I think you may have thought I meant “greeting card” by “gift card”. What I’m talking about is the credit-card sized gift cards sold in different denominations (the modern version of gift certificates). Boscov’s has these on display throughout the store. You take one to a cashier, pay for it, and the money is encoded into it. One has generic Christmas-style decorations on it with the word “MERRY”. They have another with confetti-style decorations, evidently for New Year’s Day. Since they refuse to use the word “Christmas” on the “MERRY” card, they evidently tried to establish some sort of symmetry with the New Year’s card, so that one only says “HAPPY”. However right next to both cards is the “HAPPY HANNUKAH” card. They have no problem proudly proclaiming that holiday.
Here is a link to the gift cards on their website, but please note that the website does not show all the cards. It only shows a picture of the New Year’s “HAPPY” card, with a dropdown list to select the “MERRY” card. They are evidently not yet selling the Hannukah card online.
posted by john ray 14:21
Further clarification The original e-mail did not refer to greeting cards but to gift cards. However, in the absence of any particular information about what a “gift card” is, which information was only supplied by PC Watch’s later update, readers would all assume that gift card meant greeting card and that the word Christmas had been systematically banned from all greeting cards sold at Boscov’s.
Next “Lawrence” defines what “is” “is” We all know what the deal “is” Auster.No need to ramble.on
Muhlenberg, was that tone called for? Muhlenberg, I’m one who didn’t get the impression anyone was rambling in this thread. I found the comments by all posters in the thread, including Lawrence Auster’s and Will S.’s, extremely valuable and thought-provoking. I think your insinuation (mainly in the title of your comment, which evoked the image of Clinton testifying before the Grand Jury) that Mr. Auster is insincere in his forum discussions is not only wrong and uncalled for but a little shocking, especially coming from a Turnabout regular, Turnabout being View From the Right’s closely allied sister site.
Finally, about “what the deal ‘is’ “: I wonder if you could explain that. We can say controversial things at this site, as far as I’m aware, so why the snideness in making that remark? At the risk of being completely wrong, I’ll take a guess about what “the deal is”: if it’s to do with the delicate fact that Jews and Jewish groups are prominent among those who oppose public expressions of Christmas it’s something we here (and likely the whole world) already know, including Lawrence Auster, and it’s fine to bring it up in a thread such as this, but why not politely? Why the snideness when addressing a man who has discussed things along these lines many times at his own forum completely objectively (and has said he’d be perfectly willing to discuss them more, were it not for the fact that each time he did it attracted all the genuine anti-Semites to his forum)? Bringing up the subject of Jews’ opposition to Christmas isn’t shocking. What’s shocking is the snideness.
(I’m no angel in that regard, having dished out more than my share of snide sarcasm when I get the feeling I’m talking to a brick wall who just can’t be reasoned with. But Auster’s not exactly a brick wall who just can’t be reasoned with.)
If “what the deal is” has to do with something else than this particular subject, what is it then?
I, you, Mr. Auster, and most people who come to this site oppose the forces trying to stamp out public expression of Christmas.
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“If a tree falls and an expert doesn’t hear it, is there a sound?” Yes, the sweetest, most melodious sound in all creation: the sound of entropy being brought clanking, screeching, grinding to a halt.
I wasn’t motivated by bigotry; rather anger at perceived bigotry I do not care about the beliefs and/or ethnic group identification of those that run Boscov’s, I was merely ticked off at what seemed to me, on the surface, as anti-Christian bigotry – and it is still objectionable, to have gift cards which will avoid reference to Christmas but have no such objection to other religious festivals. We do have a real “war against Christmas” going on – see VDARE for multiple examples of such. And a “War against Thanksgiving”, and against the Confederate flag, and so on. In this era, where many (perhaps even on our side, too, as a response, I’ll admit) are hypersensitive about offense, the charges levelled against Boscov’s were not unbelievable, in and of themselves. Daily, we read accounts of absurdities wherein people are offended by little things, and seek to have them banned.
BTW, I originally linked johnjayray’s cross-posting to majorityrights.com, so if I am to be taken to task for either sloppiness or perceived bigotry, along with PCWATCH, then majorityrights.com ought to be, as well.
As for my “being allowed to post” something, this forum is largely, if not completely, unmoderated (posting can be made directly), and people can pretty much post anything, and of course, anyone can respond, as they see fit… Freedom of speech for all is a wonderful thing; let’s hope and pray it lasts…
Will S. justifies himself Will S. justifies what he himself calls his “anger”-driven assumption that a major department store banned all greeting cards containing the word Christmas. He bases his assumption on the many other outrageous attacks on Christmas in recent years. So, on one hand, one can’t entirely blame him for jumping the gun. On the other hand, he should have seen that there is a big difference between, say, Christian things being closed out of public institutions such as schools, and Christian things being closed out of Christmas season Christmas cards, on sale to the public, in a large department store! I repeat that the sheer unlikelihood of the latter being the case, combined with the brevity of the e-mail that was reporting it, should have warned Will S. and John Ray and others to have verified the facts before jumping into publication calling for a “Christian” boycott of a Jewish-owned department store over such a transparently specious charge.
I repeat, this item should not have been published. For Will S. to defend the publication of this misleading and incendiary e-mail on the basis of “freedom” means that he is defining freedom as license, the license to do whatever he likes.
Some are calling for a boycott of Federated Department Stores See here for the details.
We’re letting our cultural enemies have it entirely their way Here’s the NewsMax.com item linked in Bryanna Bevens’ Vdare.com log entry which Will S. linked (must scroll far down the very long page):
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Friday, Dec. 3, 2004 12:59 p.m. EST
Macy’s Nixing “Merry Christmas”?
The store made internationally famous by the Christmas classic “Miracle on 34th Street” is reportedly phasing out any direct mention of the holiday in this year’s seasonal promotions.
“Instead of Merry Christmas the message appearing in ads and store displays is ‘Season’s Greetings’ or ‘Happy Holidays,’ ” reports WABC Radio newsman George Weber.
A statement posted to the Web site of Macy’s owner, Federated Department Stores, denies that there’s any company-wide directive to purge direct mentions of Christmas from Macy’s and other Federated outlets.
“Federated has no policy with regard to the use of specific references to Christmas in any of its divisional advertising or promotions. Our divisions are free to advertise in their local markets in any manner they choose. … Our employees are free to wish any customer a Merry Christmas.”
Still, Federated admits to bowing somewhat to the dictates of modern-day political correctness, noting:
“There are, however, many diverse cultures represented in American society today whose views we also recognize and respect. Phrases such as ‘season’s greetings’ and ‘happy holidays’ embrace all of the various religious, secular and ethnic celebrations that take place in the November/December period. [Yeah—like Kwanzaa, the ridiculous invented holiday that only makes those of a particular race who try to “celebrate” it look ridiculous in turn, and Winter Solstice Festival, the monstrosity leftists are trying to shove down our kids’ throats in place of Christmas—Fred Scrooby note]
“Because these expressions of good will are more reflective of the multi-cultural society in which we live today, they tend to be used more and more frequently across all segments of society. In fact, few if any national retailers or businesses now take a different approach to celebrating the season.”
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As Will S. points out, Vdare.com’s Bryanna Bevens is considering boycotting Bloomingdale’s because of behavior like this. What’s happening is tribalism, not universalism. If Americans want to keep the culture and traditions they hold most dear they must, among other things, rise up in no uncertain terms and force George Bush to bring to a halt his pet project of replacing the original U.S. population with other peoples he insists on bringing in in their millions and tens of millions. The American people have to learn they can’t have it both ways: can’t have open borders and still be Americans, any more than the Ugandans can have open borders and still be Ugandans, the Vietnamese can have open borders and still be Vietnamese, the Irish can have open borders and still be Irish, or the French can have open borders and still be French. Anyone who says differently is spouting a bunch of boob bait for the conservative Bush-loving bubbas. (For those bubbas who’ve had some college, it’s called sophistry …). And of course it goes without saying it’s one hundred percent right to boycott stores that pull this stunt. That’s called self-defense against attack (largely attack by other tribes, by the way, for any who think this is at bottom genuine universalism: it’s not, but to a large extent the opposite: genuine tribalism).
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“If a tree falls and an expert doesn’t hear it, is there a sound?” Yes, the sweetest, most melodious sound in all creation: the sound of entropy being brought clanking, screeching, grinding to a halt.
Do I think preserving non-Christian cultures and religions is more important than saving heathen souls? I don’t view it that way. I view it as “Christianity is right for me, and their religions are right for them.” Let each respect the other, not try to impose his truth on the other.
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“If a tree falls and an expert doesn’t hear it, is there a sound?” Yes, the sweetest, most melodious sound in all creation: the sound of entropy being brought clanking, screeching, grinding to a halt.
That’s a disturbing, theologically relativist view, Fred… “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
(John 14:6)
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.”
(John 3:16-18)
The above quotes, Fred, are from Jesus Christ. He is the only Way, and those who don’t believe in Him, and what He has done, and who don’t have Him as their Saviour, are condemned to hell. We’ve been given a Great Commission, to spread the gospel to the four corners of the world:
Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
(Matthew 28:18-20)
Scripture is quite clear, and a summary of Scriptural doctrine which is held by Roman Catholics, Lutherans, and Reformed alike, http://www.canrc.org/resources/bop/athan/ the Athanasian Creed, begins and ends thus:
(1) Whoever desires to be saved must above all things hold to the catholic faith. (2) Unless a man keeps it in its entirety inviolate, he will assuredly perish eternally.
{…}
(42) This is the catholic faith. Unless a man believes it faithfully and steadfastly, he cannot be saved. Amen.
I can appreciate the “live and let live” desire, but it’s not an option for orthodox Christians. (Of any stripe – you noticed, in the account of the martyred missionaries in Uganda, which you linked earlier, that they consisted of both Roman Catholics and Protestants; both traditions have emphasized the importance of spreading the Word, and thus the Faith, everywhere…) Christ is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and without Him, people perish for their sins. BTW, South Korea is now apparently over 50% Christian – and I assure you, from friends I know who’ve been there and from other Asians, they still very much have their culture, and do Asian things we’d find revolting, e.g. eat dogs and cats… (And they still speak Korean, and have names like Kim and Lee and Park and Jung… And drink disgustingly, cloyingly sweet rice wines, ick… I’ve had them – don’t!) But, praise God, some of them have been saved, and get to spend eternity with the Lord, as will the faithful here in the West.
There is One Truth, to which, either men subscribe, and live eternally, or don’t subscribe, and perish, burning in everlasting hell. That’s the Gospel…
BTW, I’m very glad our forebears evangelized the Nigerians, because now Anglicans and Episcopalians, in Canada and the U.S., respectively, can look to the leadership of Bishop Akinola, who, you recall, is considering allowing orthodox Anglicans over here to have their churches be under his jurisdiction, thus resisting the “gay”-rights, gay-ordination trend… Akinola, and the African Anglicans in general, are staunch traditionalists, while the North American church, and the British one for that matter, too (and doubtless the same in Australia and New Zealand), are liberal, apostate denominations, rejecting Biblical truths in favour of liberal, politically correct B.S. Praise God, for the faithful African Anglican church! Which we wouldn’t have, if the missionaries had been relativistic, rather than following the Great Commission, and going where they felt the Lord leading them…
Speaking of the Athanasian Creed… … I know this is off on a tangent, but thinking about the Athanasian Creed reminded me of an essay which incorporated the whole Athanasian Creed into it; IMO, a very inspirational essay; it’s a Lutheran pastor’s reflections, a couple Christmases back, and relevant as ever today. Go http://www.markdankof.com/the_mystery_of_christmas.htm here to read it.
Thank you Will S. for those helpful explanations Thank you for that very thoughtful, helpful reply. I’ll certainly think further on the subject. I agree with you about Nigeria and Bishop Akinola, thanks to whom, as you remind us, Episcopalians in the U.S. have additional hope that there will be congregations available to them which are not completely taken over by the homosexualist agenda where, if need be, they can go and worship without leaving Anglicanism. Bishop Akinola is a wonderful man.
What I said, incidentally, about respecting already-existing religions and cultures rather than trying to convert them was meant to apply to civilized religions and cultures like the Korean, Chinese, Middle-Eastern Moslem, and so on. Uncivilized ones, such as existed among Eskimos, non-Moslem Black Africans, and so on, are a different story.
Since I participate in this forum a lot, I’ll add a word about myself which may partly explain my lack of understanding of many Christian things (I’m still learning): my upbringing as far as religion is concerned was a little complicated and I don’t have orthodox views, as things have worked out, not by choice but by ignorance and having had to cobble things together for myself. Briefly, I was educated as a Catholic child until I think the summer between my fourth and fifth grades, then was abruptly pulled out of all Catholic education and practice (when my mother got the upper hand over my father) and raised atheist thereafter and to ridicule Christianity at every opportunity. After college I began to find my way back to Christianity, a long process that took years. I’m ignorant of a great many Christian ideas and practices and often don’t have standard views and feelings about things Christian, by ignorance. I consider myself a Catholic (I was never confirmed). (I’m married to a Catholic Walloon who has raised our kids Catholic.)
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“If a tree falls and an expert doesn’t hear it, is there a sound?” Yes, the sweetest, most melodious sound in all creation: the sound of entropy being brought clanking, screeching, grinding to a halt.
Ah, I see… I pray you will be guided into a sharper (and more orthodox) understanding of your faith.
For my part, I was raised in a liberal denomination, the United Church of Canada – kinda similar to the United Church of Christ in your country – and was led out of it, by God’s grace, about twelve years ago. I shortly thereafter became an evangelical Protestant, worshipping in a variety of different churches, but I became disillusioned with evangelicalism, and have left it behind, and by God’s grace, have become Reformed – and I’m staying put, this time…
I see no reason for a distinction between civilized pagans and uncivilized pagans – both should have the Word preached to them, and the opportunity to embrace (or reject) it. Like I said, South Korea is half-converted now, and remains Korean, in their language, habits, customs, etc. In other words, their embrace of the faith hasn’t weakened their culture, or made them less Korean. So I don’t think one need fear about others’ losing their cultures – I know some Iraqi Christians here in Canada, and I assure you, they speak Arabic, eat Middle Eastern food, etc. – their faith makes them no less Iraqi… (I might wish, as immigrants, that they’d leave behind more of their distinctives; further, I might wish that Canada would not let in so many non-Western immigrants, but those are other concerns, not relevant to this discussion, per se.)
Some of the cultures here in North America which groups like the Jesuits found and worked to convert, e.g. the Iroquois, were quite civilized, in terms of technological and social development – and in central and South America, the Aztecs, Mayans, and Incas were even more so. That didn’t discourage the Spaniards from evangelizing them… In fact, it made it, in their minds, all the more imperative to convert them – and destroy such elements of their pagan idolatry as human sacrifice… Some cultural practices, should be destroyed…
Thank you “I pray you will be guided into a sharper (and more orthodox) understanding of your faith.” (—Will S.)
Thank you.
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“by God’s grace” (—also from Will’s post)
That’s a beautiful expression, “by God’s grace.”
Amazing grace! How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found;
Was blind, but now I see.
[…]
Through many dangers, toils and snares,
I have already come;
’Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far,
And grace will lead me home.
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“If a tree falls and an expert doesn’t hear it, is there a sound?” Yes, the sweetest, most melodious sound in all creation: the sound of entropy being brought clanking, screeching, grinding to a halt.
BTW, Fred, I was wondering: >(I’m married to a Catholic Walloon who has raised our kids Catholic.)
Given your having a Belgian connection, what do you, and/or your wife, think about the Vlaams Belang, and Belgium’s troubles in general – do you sympathize with the Walloons or the Flemings, notwithstanding that your wife is Walloon? (For example, for my part, as an English-Canadian, while I don’t want to see Canada break up, I can understand why Quebecois see themselves as distinct from the rest of Canada – they are, plain and simple – and why some feel secession is the only way they can preserve their distinctiveness, in the face of a nation that is 3/4 non-French-Canadian – and next to an English-speaking nation ten times bigger, and culturally predominant, making the French-speaking population a tiny island in an English-speaking sea… (Moi, je parle francais – un peu – et j’ai les amies francophones… (I speak some French, and have French-speaking friends…)) So, I have a bit of a different perspective than most English-Canadians, who tend to only consider things from their own vantage point, and not be able to see things from the Quebecois POV…)
I love Flanders AND Wallonia AND support the Vlaams Belang Thank you for that question, Will.
I support efforts by the Flemings to preserve themselves as a race(*), culture, ethnicity, ethno-culture, and nation (yes some of those overlap—I wanted to make sure I left no gaps). These are good, salt-of-the-earth people seeking only redress of legitimate grievances. May they prevail and prosper!
I do question the Belang’s preference for republicanism over monarchy. I’m starting to feel that monarchy, for all its faults, forms a slightly stronger bulwark than republican government against the sorts of socially destructive forces Turnabout came into being to question. Yes, yes, we all know how many European monarchies are marching toward their destruction shoulder-to-shoulder with doomed republics and just as enthusiastically. Certainly, the pathology of these Lemmings of the West needs further study before anyone can identify the germ and come up with a cure. I’d encourage Flanders in the meantime to plan on remaining a monarchy if ever it gain its independence from the monarchy it’s part of now.
I also sympathize with the Quebec nationalists, including those who want outright independence for Quebec.
I like countries, nations, races, sub-races, ethnicities, cultures, ethno-cultures, religions, tribes, traditions, languages, dialects, accents, special words, customs, heritages, national myths and legends, folktales, folksongs, folk memories, and so on. People who are strictly allergic to these things, I’m strictly allergic to. I oppose the forced annihilation of these things by governments doing the bidding of interested parties such as, e.g., rival races or ethnic groups, Wall Street, organizations of Marxists who see themselves as future Nomenklaturas, or organizations of self-righteous, selfish Christians who falsely want to appear self-abnegating. Any who support the preservation of these sorts of things have my sympathy.
At bottom what I don’t like is meaninglessness, and what I support is meaning.
“So, I have a bit of a different perspective than most English-Canadians, who tend to only consider things from their own vantage point, and not be able to see things from the Quebecois POV…”
That’s the way I am too.
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(* No, leftists, you’re not seeing things—I did say race. And yes, the Flemish are a different race from the Dutch to their north, the English across the Channel, the Walloons to their south, and the Germans to their west, just as all these are different races from them and different races from each other)
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“If a tree falls and an expert doesn’t hear it, is there a sound?” Yes, the sweetest, most melodious sound in all creation: the sound of entropy being brought clanking, screeching, grinding to a halt.
Erratum The Germans to their east, of course, not west.
Yes, monarchy is the way, IMO… … I, too, as a patriotic, traditionalist Canadian, am a staunch monarchist, for a variety of reasons, not least of which is, I prefer my head of State to claim his/her authority to rule as being “Dei Gratia”, i.e. “By God’s Grace” (as each Canadian coin proclaims on the head side, in short form – “D.G. Regina” – “Queen, by the Grace of God”), rather than any such “of the people; by the people, for the people” malarkey; monarchy implicitly, if not explicitly to some degree, recognizes God and His sovereignty, where republicanism largely fails to do so (notwithstanding the “In God We Trust” on the coins). Among several other reasons, one partly related to the previous one is, I like having my head of State (who is chosen by God) separate from my head of government (who is indeed chosen by the people) – I’ve always been both amused and disturbed at the treasonous rhetoric that proceeds out of some Americans’ mouths when their favoured candidate loses – Limbaugh and dittoheads said “America held hostage” during the Clinton years; Democrats said “our REAL president” and “our REAL VP” about Gore and Liebermann, and now some want to move here to Canada because Kerry lost? (Stay home! We don’t want you! And http://colbycosh.com/#mfos stop wearing our flag and pretending to be us when in Europe, you blue-staters!)
The following are some excellent monarchist sites, with many arguments in favour of monarchy:
And there’s lots more out there, including, oddly enough, tons at paleolibertarian website http://www.lewrockwell.com LRC.
“If Patrick Henry or James Otis or James Otis’s sister (Mercy Otis Warren) could come back and see what their descendants had done with the liberties they fought for, they would head straight to London and kiss the Queen’s big toe.” – http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/HardRight/HardRight070401.htm Thomas Fleming
“Now and then I’m asked whether the Clintons ever make me miss George Bush. Miss George Bush? Sometimes I miss George III.” – http://www.sobran.com/welcome2.shtml Joseph Sobran
Regarding Flanders: since the Flemings and the Dutch, who already share a common tongue and ethnic heritage, are both seemingly the most acutely aware amongst Europeans, of the dangers of unrestricted Islamic immigration, I’d love to see Flanders join the Netherlands, and come under their monarchy… The conservative Flemings could help the Dutch recover a non-liberal reason to oppose the dar-al-Islam’s conquest of Europe, by rediscovering who they are, what they were, what they lost, how they lost it, and what they must re-become to recover it… The Dutch would bestow on the Flemings the blessings of a monarchy which supports rather than opposes them… Ah well; I can dream…
I had objections to your post 1)British monarchy is more degenerated,pornographic and blasphemous in Europe,DragQueen Elizabeth of England is greedy,abusive toward workers, corrupted,vicious,scandalous,sexually filthy and permissive,confused in religious ideas and last but no least racialist. 2)Why reference to God in American coin is worthy nothing while mention to God in Canada is important? Acording to Apostle Paul God is no blesser from avarice,somebody living without working with 136 billlions dollars is avaricious,no it is?. 3)Spiritually comitted people in America are hardly criticized by you because his/her wrong political ideas or practices,but secularist,mundane,worldly Queen who never has evangelized,read the Bible or prayed/except in ritualized ways,rezos style/is supported by you,why?.
The Queen’s role is to rule; evangelization is the Church’s task I recognize the moral degeneracy that infects the entire West, whether republican countries or monarchist ones, and I’m not saying that monarchies are perfect, utopias. I’m saying the cultural rots starts – or, rather, started, with the moral relativism that I believe is inescapable when people feel they, and not Providence, control their own destinies, who rules them, etc.; eventually you see demands by everyone for their “rights”, for “equality”. Liberal democracy leads to radical egalitarianism, naturally; no-one in a society that isn’t highly hierarchical (as the feudal societies of Europe of old were), and that officially endorses social egalitarianism, will put up with being treated differently from anyone else. Hence suffragism, abolitionism, feminism, gay rights, “children’s rights”, and even, sentimentally on behalf of creatures who can’t ask and can’t know enough to care, animal rights.
Naturally, since no country lives in a separate world from everyone else, this attitude spreads to monarchical societies as well.
I don’t see how the Queen and members of the Royal family are any worse than, say, Bill Clinton – and I haven’t seen Bush doing any more than QEII to evangelize, spread the Gospel, promote it, etc. (Bush isn’t a very good Christian, either – see http://www.bushrevealed.com/ BushRevealed.) Mind you, that’s the Church’s role, anyway; individuals are to always be ready to give a reason for the hope they have, as Scripture says, but the Great Commission is actually given to the Church, not to individuals. (After all, the Great Commission mentions the Sacrament of Baptism – I don’t know about you, but I’ve never baptized anybody… That’s the Church’s role. As usual, Anabaptists and their evangelical descendents miss the whole context, and have misunderstood this passage to mean that all Christians, as individuals, are responsible for evangelizing everyone they possibly can, and are directly responsible for leading people to Christ, as individuals, and not corporately, as the Church, through both Word and Sacrament.)
The Queen does work; she performs her largely ceremonial role, and that is her occupation; she rules by God’s grace – I totally reject any suggestion to the contrary. I don’t feel like getting into any big debates right now re: monarchy – read what people at the monarchist sites I previously linked have argued in favour of monarchy, I pretty much agree, with most of it, if not all, of their arguments. (I don’t know where you get that 136B figure, either, but never mind…) The Queen’s children may be morally problematic, but when did the Queen ever commit adultery, etc? And, like I said, Charles, and Andrew, etc., are no worse than Bill Clinton – and God can and has made use of grossly immoral rulers – God appointed Sampson, David, and Solomon to their positions, in spite of their flaws. He put them in their places, as Judge/Kings over Israel. (That doesn’t mean He endorsed their behaviour; on the contrary, they and/or Israel always suffered consequences – but nevertheless, they reigned.) So His having political servants today who are no better, is no different. The Queen is not Christ, nor is a republic’s president; both are flawed individuals, but that in and of itself doesn’t disqualify either for a God-given role as leader, any more than the same flaws did so for Sampson, David, or Solomon. So she’s anti-egalitarian, has some unfortunate theological misunderstandings (one doesn’t have to belong to the church of which she is the titular head; I certainly don’t – and I don’t consider her my spiritual authority – but she still is my head of State, and I a loyal subject); so it goes, here on Earth…
The Canadian coin – as with the British coins, which have the same head, pretty much – directly addresses the matter of who rules (the person whose image is shown is the actual ruler today, unlike a dead president depicted on a Yankee coin, and the inscription indicates why – she rules by God’s grace. “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s; render unto God the things that are God’s”, said Christ, when shown a denarius with Caesar’s inscription on it. The Canadian currency acknowledges this principle, at least implicitly, by showing who rules, and officially recognizing why she rules.) The American coins say “In God We Trust”, which is nice and all; but which God? Even though I’m not Anglican, the fact that the Queen is officially the titular head of the Anglican church, if I’m not mistaken, shows that the God she acknowledges – however imperfectly she does so – is the Christian God, YHWH, and not some nebulous, non-Christ-referenced Deist all-purpose Deity, and how much does the American government trust in God, anyway? (Where public schools conduct a war on Christmas, Thanksgiving, etc.; where city halls can’t permit nativity scenes at Christmas; where a monument to the Ten Commandments can’t be displayed any more in a courthouse; where law permits over a million abortions a year; etc. etc.)
Psalm 1, in my opinion, challenges the State to acknowledge God, the real God, of the Bible – “Kiss the Son; lest he be angry”… By explicitly ruling out acknowledging the God of the Bible as the reason for their authority – and, from my perspective, by rejecting His appointed servant George III (yes, I said it; the revolutionists rejected God’s ordained servant George III, and had to come up with theological justifications for doing so, which I find unconvincing, and reject in toto.), the American revolutionaries denied Christ His rightful place, as King of their land…
I know most Americans reading will disagree, as will Venezuelans and other patriots from countries that are republics, so we’ll have to agree to disagree; I accept that things are as they are, and have been for 200+ years; doesn’t mean I agree that they should have gone that way, but never mind…
Nothing wrong with “ritualized” prayers, IMO – the Lord’s Prayer is a ritualized prayer, and it comes straight from Scripture – so, too, worship involving singing the Psalms – that’s very ritualistic; as is ending with the Aaronic Benediction. What’s wrong with ritual?
I don’t give a fig how sincere and committed “Willow Creek”, “megachurch” Christians are; while sincerely, Godly. Bible-believing Christians, they are wrong in their approaches, and I’ll say it. I’ll criticize the Queen if I think she’s wrong in something, and have done so (not here, so far, perhaps, but privately in conversation with friends, and if something were to happen serious enough to warrant comment here, in the near future, I’d do so). Nevertheless, in the absence of more Godly alternatives (which England had in 1690, for example, and so I am grateful to God for His sending William of Orange to England in her hour of need), I support His servant the Queen, same as, if I lived in the time of Sampson, David or Solomon, and were one of God’s people then, I’d have supported my sinful, all-too-human leader, whom God placed in power, as He did the British Royal Family.
Flemish race I have read in letters to editor section in newsweek magazine,flemish considers themselves only dutch people,emphasis by belgium in making flemish dialect a different language is considerated a trick to impose illegitimate suzeiranity from belgium crown,and AfricanCrisis.org a website from boer Jan Lamprecht says something similar. What is your opinion about it?.
“I have read in letters to editor section in newsweek magazine that the flemish consider themselves only dutch people”
(First, the rag known as Newsweek is an extreme radical leftist sheet without journalistic standards whatsoever which I’d as soon read as pre-1989 Pravda. Why any conservative person reads that filthy rag—or The New York Times, for that matter—is a mystery to me. Never count on finding truth there.)
You can travel across the country of Flanders asking people in every city, town, and village if they want to join Holland and not find a single one who won’t gravely shake his head “No.”
Flemish nothing but Dutch? No. They are their own very distinct nation. They are not going to join Holland.
“emphasis by belgium in making flemish dialect a different language is considerated a trick to impose illegitimate suzeiranity from belgium crown,and AfricanCrisis.org a website from boer Jan Lamprecht says something similar. What is your opinion about it?
“If a tree falls and an expert doesn’t hear it, is there a sound?” Yes, the sweetest, most melodious sound in all creation: the sound of entropy being brought clanking, screeching, grinding to a halt.
not too surprising… … I guess my faint hope (in my last post in this thread) was just that, but I understand; even the Moldovans want nothing to do with Romania, the Austrians see themselves as quite distinct from the Germans, and so on. (The Acadians, in Canada, see themselves as quite different from the Quebecois, and the “brayons” of Madawaska, New Brunswick, see themselves as not really Acadians, though they are descended from them…)
A couple comments:
1. Beco A couple comments:
1. Becoming a Christian isn’t like becoming a Muslim or (Orthodox) Jew. There’s not a single Christian nation with the same laws, habits, customs, etc.
2. You can’t impose your truth on others, but you can present what you see as true. If the other accepts it because he also sees it as true then you haven’t destroyed his identity, you’ve helped him achieve it better.
3. To the extent Christianity as it actually exists leaves out something good and true I don’t think it will succeed in converting everybody in any event.
I do think that some Catholics think of Catholicism as something like nationality or ethnicity rather than something that converts nationality, ethnicity and the like while preserving them. So if they think American life as it stands is unsatisfactory their solution is to import some other nationality, Mexicans or whatever, who they think are more Catholic. I find that point of view deeply anti-Christian. The point is that Catholic Christianity would make Americans more truly what they are and bring out what is best in them.
Rem tene, verba sequentur.
Religion trumps race “I do think that some Catholics think of Catholicism as something like nationality or ethnicity …”
I think I see your point, but it should be acknowledged that Catholicism *is* something like nationality or ethnicity: i.e., it is a family. Furthermore, it is a family that transcends other kinds of families and, indeed, takes precedence over them in many ways.
” … rather than something that converts nationality, ethnicity and the like while preserving them.”
Catholicism does convert nationality and ethnicity, but it does not necessarily preserve them or keep them from changing. It sees nothing wrong with their preservation, of course, so long as a right order of things is observed.
“So if they think American life as it stands is unsatisfactory their solution is to import some other nationality, Mexicans or whatever, who they think are more Catholic.”
And conversely, there are those who think American life is unsatisfactory not because it isn’t Catholic enough, but because it isn’t white enough, and their solution is to “repatriate” those immigrants that are insufficiently white. How you diagnose the problem has a lot to do with how you see immigration.
“The point is that Catholic Christianity would make Americans more truly what they are and bring out what is best in them.”
No argument there. And if immigration helps bring Catholic Christianity to Americans, what is anti-Christian about that?
Catholicism isn’t on the same Catholicism isn’t on the same plane as nationality or ethnicity. To be a Jew is to be a member of one particular ethnic people. To be a Muslim is to be a member of a universal nation that cancels all other nationality. To be Catholic isn’t like that.
Catholicism does not leave ethnicity just as it was, any more than it leaves personality just as it was. It sets each in a larger setting but doesn’t wipe out either and views each as a good. Support for that view in the case of ethnicity can be found for example in the current Pope’s comments on the importance of cultures. To say something is a good is not of course to say it is the one ultimate good that trumps all others. I haven’t the faintest idea why in reason Mr. Culbreath should feel compelled repeatedly to argue against that view.
Nor do I understand why immigration on any large scale would help bring Catholicism to Americans. There are already scores of millions of Catholics here who can present the faith. When Saint Paul tried to bring Christianity to one place or another his strategy was not to organize a resettlement campaign to populate the place with people who were already Christian. He made his pitch to those who were there already. That’s been the approach of evangelists and missionaries generally.
Rem tene, verba sequentur.
“Catholicism isn’t on the sam “Catholicism isn’t on the same plane as nationality or ethnicity. To be a Jew is to be a member of one particular ethnic people. To be a Muslim is to be a member of a universal nation that cancels all other nationality. To be Catholic isn’t like that.”
Right, Catholicism doesn’t cancel out nationality.
“To say something is a good is not of course to say it is the one ultimate good that trumps all others. I haven’t the faintest idea why in reason Mr. Culbreath should feel compelled repeatedly to argue against that view.”
The reason Mr. Culbreath feels compelled to repeatedly argue the point is that there are commenters here who, in his opinion, repeatedly give race a significance and importance that it does not merit. Such as the recent example of a commenter saying that some races should not be Christian.
You will notice that race is the only thing I ever talk about around here. That’s because I agree with (or can at least accept as legitimate) almost everything else that is said.
“Nor do I understand why immigration on any large scale would help bring Catholicism to Americans.”
That is not hard to understand at all. Immigrants brought Catholicism to me, a native-born Protestant, for instance. The idea that immigration can influence a culture should be a familiar theme to readers of Turnabout/VFR.
“There are already scores of millions of Catholics here who can present the faith.”
If they could, one presumes they would. But they don’t. That’s because 80% of America’s “scores of millions” of Catholics need evangelization themselves.
“When Saint Paul tried to bring Christianity to one place or another his strategy was not to organize a resettlement campaign to populate the place with people who were already Christian. He made his pitch to those who were there already. That’s been the approach of evangelists and missionaries generally.”
I think we also have the example of European colonization which Christianized the New World. Both are workable approaches.
As I’ve said before, I’m an immigration restrictionist and would like to see a sharp reduction in immigration until America gets her own house in order. But if there is going to be immigration, let most of it be Catholic.
Quasi-reformers Mr. Culberth’s agreements on other issues are appreciated as well as his disagreements on race. I agree immigrating Catholics is a tool. It does seem we differ on the value of race.
Some say they want reform in the way they want a front door. They want the door to keep out the elements and thieves and a lot of people but not people of any particular race, that is, unless they agree with racially profiling criminals. (Before the so-called civil rights dictates of the Supreme Court, which quasi-reformers consider justice, and mass immigration, people in many neighborhoods could sleep with their front doors open on cool evenings.) Race is said to be important but only if one does nothing to keep it important.
Reformers, however, want the door to function as a device to exclude whomever they choose no matter (or almost no matter) what the basis. Our instinct to recognize an outsider is a basic instinct and can only be suppressed through the tyranny of a Supreme Court. The quasi-reformer actually has and uses the same basic instinct just not in regards to race. The quasi-reformer wants to use a door as a device to exclude (or mabe to lock up) a person of a particular race who wants to do something to retain the integrity of his family’s race or races. The quasi-reformer says he does not want one race but works to prevent others from ensuring there is more than one race.
To be fair, I don’t actually know whether Mr. Culbreth is the quasi-reformer I describe, and it is probably true Mr. Culbreth also thinks the Supreme Court went too far (but not as far as I think it went).
Some people are interested in race; others aren’t. That’s fine. “The reason Mr. Culbreath feels compelled to repeatedly argue the point is that there are commenters here who, in his opinion, repeatedly give race a significance and importance that it does not merit. Such as the recent example of a commenter saying that some races should not be Christian.” (—Jeff Culbreath)
I didn’t say some races should not be Christian. (And in what I said on that topic, by the way, I wasn’t talking about race at all.) I said other cultures and religions both enrich the world by their existence and have the right to continue in existence and it seemed wrong to me to convert them to Christianity. I love the world the way it is. I love the Moslem culture, I love the Chinese culture, I love the Vietnamese culture, I love the Japanese culture, I love the Jewish-Israeli culture, I love the Hindu culture, and so on. I would hate to see any of these go out of existence or weaken. Most of all, I love the Christian culture—my own. But I want all the others to stick around because they are what make up the world—aren’t they? It’s an unbelievably beautiful world—all of it, not just Christianity—though Christianity, for me, is by far the most beautiful of all.
I’ve realized that Mr. Culbreath simply is not interested in race or races as such. That’s fine, and as a result I won’t ask him again about questions having to do with race.
I happen to have been a “green” ever since high school, in full sympathy with what many here would perhaps consider strongly pro-environmental policies (though I utterly reject what we all know as the extremist wacko green Marxist fringe and their shenanigans). I love driving through beautiful countryside looking at landscapes, trees, woods, fields, hills, rivers, farmland—you get the picture—I really, really love it. Once I was in a car riding through some really beautiful countryside and was amazed to learn my good friend sitting next to me was completely indifferent to it. He tried to drive home the point for me by looking around in the car, pointing to the inside of the car door next to us, and saying, “You see the inside of this car door? Well, looking at your beautiful countryside out the window gives me the same amount of pleasure, no more and no less, as looking at the inside of this car door.”
Some things that may interest us simply don’t interest others. Race is one such. I find races interesting. Mr. Culbreath doesn’t. I think that may be all that’s going on here.
Just as my friend in that story wouldn’t be the proper one to ask about environmental or “green” issues, about which he cared nothing, Mr. Culbreath may not, I now realize, be the proper one to ask about race, about which he cares nothing, or seems not to. I won’t ask him again.
________________________
“If a tree falls and an expert doesn’t hear it, is there a sound?” Yes, the sweetest, most melodious sound in all creation: the sound of entropy being brought clanking, screeching, grinding to a halt.
Religion Trumps Race? I wonder if the idea that religion trumps race makes sense. Religion for example is the belief Jesus is the Savior. The believer and the nonbeliever each have a race. So the belief Jesus is the Savior is more important than the actual believer and nonbeliever?
“I wonder if the idea that re “I wonder if the idea that religion trumps race makes sense. Religion for example is the belief Jesus is the Savior. The believer and the nonbeliever each have a race. So the belief Jesus is the Savior is more important than the actual believer and nonbeliever?”
What I mean is that the most significant and important thing about a person’s identity is his religion, not his race.
What beco means? And about catholicism and ethnical identity,I think this constitutes problem with christian arabs,they are more interested in secular things than in religion,it affects situation in midle east.
Boscov’s was OK with Hanukkah event at the store
This is from several years ago so perhaps the store has decided to eliminate all association with religious holidays. Or perhaps it hasn’t:
Doesn’t matter to me if a store or anyone else selects which groups to support. But we all know if the situation were reversed what would happen.{
The link from the majorityrights post…
… says this:
“Boscov’s was founded by Solomon Boscov in 1911 and is owned by the families of Albert Boscov and Edwin Lakin.”
So, presumably, the founders and current owners both are Jewish; the point is, they’ll carry Hanukkah greeting cards, but not ones saying “Merry Christmas”, which is an attack on the faith of the majority of Americans, and likely, the majority of those purchasing things in December of each year. So it’s clearly a bigoted double standard. But money talks, so if people in Reading, PA and nearby vote with their dollars, by not spending them there, and by complaining and letting them know that’s why, it may force them to change their minds; if they don’t, they’ll just have to suffer the loss of business their stance results in.
Bocov’s founded in 1911 but growth came in 60s.
The expansion came later according to this article. It says Albie Boscov’s first store burned down in the 1960s after which he began a massive advertising campaign and sponsored the first Black Heritage Festival in Pennsylvania Dutch Country.
Sounds like an Identity Politics kinda guy.
Re: I knows an even worse situation…
In Harvard Business School Review,I have reads a jew woman filed a lawsuit against a holy bible study group in her corporation,made by workers in their offtime because it makes her feel excluded. When christiansin america will realizes who their real enemy is…
It seems to me the real enemy
It seems to me the real enemy is a way of thinking that sets up neutrality as a standard to be enforced by government on all social relations. There are always minorities who don’t like what most people do and would stop it if they could. So the key question is what the institutional arrangements and understandings are that empower such people.
Rem tene, verba sequentur.
The courts are Exhibit #A.
The courts are Exhibit #A.
Various affirmative action schemes, abortion and the purging of faith from the public square—three of the left’s favorite things—have been imposed upon society in part, or entirely, by judges.
But there is hope. All of Bush’s nominations to the Fedeal Bench are good. Best crop in my lifetime. Consider Justice Brown’s speech to the Federalist Society:
“A Whiter Shade of Pale”: Sense and Nonsense— The Pursui t of Perfection in Law and Politicsa
Everything it demonstrates C. Carlson is right!
and Israel Shamir too!.Reads about more atrocities as it in:whtt.org
Jews are our Friends
not that the commentator necessarily thinks otherwise. (Somehow my immediate post did not get through weeks ago.) The number of non-Jewish people in accord with some Jewish people is so vast and overwhelming in number, I cannot see the reason for the inference that Jewish people are somehow a decisive moral liability for non-Jewish behavior or, better yet, reaction. What would a Christian (who believes the Jewish Messiah has already come) expect from people who believe Christ was not the Jewish Messiah?
Christians perhaps should trust in the final judgment of Jesus, a Jewish person and part of the Trinity. It is not sensible to conclude Jewishness is responsible for whatever situation we relatively enormously-numbered non-Jewish people find ourselves.
Liberalism is perhaps a cause of our disregard of race, culture, or religion but not because liberals are morons. Liberals can think. I saw a recent example tonight on the liberal program (that I never watch) where Martin Sheen is the President. A regular—a short, balding small man—recited a litany of incontrovertible reasons for the speciousness of the charge we are not “nice†to Arabs. (His style reminds me of Al Pacino.) So liberals are not stupid or ignorant, just biased. Let’s not mimic their behavior by blaming Jewish people for America’s woes. We are so lucky to not be in Israel’s situation, perhaps we should be thinking of ways to help Israel, not that we should write a blank check.
Christian who happen to be jews or arabs are our brothers
but jews and arabs who are no christians must to be evangelized;USA as secular country/reads node America as Kingdom of God on Earth/,makes political decisions that can be hurtful to another countries,please visit comeandsee.co.il for more info.
Would if Could
I would join the boycott if I could, but I am located in the Deep South. We have only the big three TV networks, Disney, and Google (for its refusal to take anti-abortion ads) to boycott.
Opinion is Interested
I am interested and will check them out. I have been using Alta Vista exclusively, but I will gladly try traditionalist engines of the Christian or Jewish persuasion. Thanks for the tip.
Boycott Olympic games too!
‘Boycott Beijing Olympics’ Campaign Launched
By Patrick Goodenough
CNSNews.com London Bureau Chief
August 21, 2001
London (CNSNews.com) – A press freedom group Tuesday launched a campaign to generate international support for a boycott of the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, because of China’s human rights record.
Reporters Sans Frontieres (Reporters Without Borders) conceded that without the backing of major governments a boycott would never materialize, but said a campaign had to begin somewhere.
The organization has set up a href=”http://www.boycottbeijing2008.net “websites in English and French, and it is encouraging Internet users to sign a petition.
“Given the massive human rights violations in China, it seems unacceptable to us that the Chinese government be allowed the right to host the world’s most prestigious sporting event,” it reads in part.
The petition is addressed to U.N. member states, which are urged to publicly voice their disapproval of the International Olympic Committee’s decision to grant the 2008 Games to Beijing, and to support a boycott.
The Paris-based group said the reasons used to justify a U.S.-led boycott by around 60 nations of the 1980 Olympics in Moscow were relevant in Beijing’s case too.
As the Soviet Union had invaded Afghanistan, so too has China taken possession of Tibet, Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia, it said, charging that the Chinese today infringes human rights more vigorously than the Soviets had done in the late 1970s.
“The Olympic movement was discredited in 1936, when it allowed the Nazis to make the Games a spectacle to glorify the Third Reich,” said RSF. “In 1980, in Moscow, the IOC suffered a terrible defeat when more than 50 countries boycotted the Olympics.
“In 2008, the international sporting movement must refuse to tolerate one of the world’s bloodiest dictatorships.”
‘We have to find other ways’
RSF, which monitors and reports on infringements of press freedom worldwide, says China is a major violator of this and other basic human rights.
Since the IOC selected Beijing as host city in mid-July, it said, repression in China had not eased.
“As long as the Chinese government does not release political prisoners, refuses to have negotiations with the [exiled Tibetan leader] Dalai Lama and does not put an end to censorship, our campaign will not stop,” said RSF general secretary Robert M’e9nard.
RSF spokesman Vincent Brossel said from Paris Tuesday the group recognized the enormity of the challenge, but was already picking up support in Europe and North America, especially among sportsmen.
Some Tibetan groups and exiled Chinese dissident have also voiced their support for the boycott campaign, he said.
Brossel conceded that leading human rights groups, such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, were unlikely to support the campaign.
But new tactics had to be found, he insisted. “Each year human rights organizations go to Geneva to try to see China condemned by the U.N. Human Rights Commission. Every year we are depressed, because China is too strong. We have to find other ways, and I think the pressure that civil society can put on our governments is very important.”
Brossel noted that European countries and the U.S. had been “very quiet” after the IOC voted in favor of Beijing on July 13.
“They said, ‘We don’t know if it’s good news, but we hope it will help [improve] human rights and have a positive impact.’ But they have to do more, they have to set some conditions,” he argued.
The Americans and Europeans knew that diplomatic pressure on China had in the past proved highly effective in persuading the authorities to free pro-democracy activists, he said.
Brossel challenged the view that hosting the Olympics may force the Chinese to improve their human rights record. In recent meetings with prominent Soviet-era dissidents in Russia, he said, he had learnt that this had not been the case in the Soviet Union in 1980.
The Moscow Olympics had no positive effect at all, they told him. The only good thing to come out of the episode was the boycott, which had awoken many Soviet citizens to the realization that their country was out of step with much of the international community.
“It’s completely wrong to say the Olympic Games helped with the democratization of Russia. It was the boycott itself that had the impact.”
Brossel said it was too early to say how the campaign would go, and how much support the petition would generate. Also, much could happen in the seven years between now and the Beijing Olympics.
But he expressed optimism that the boycott strategy could be an effective one.
“A lot of people like to watch the Olympic Games. Maybe they will be conscious that if it is in Beijing, it will be shameful. People do not like to have a bad conscience, to see that the athletes are enjoying the Games, but at the same time people are in jail and in Tibet the repression is going on.
“We have to act more on the conscience of people, and I think they will follow our initiative.”
In his 1981 book, Political History of the Olympic Games, author David B. Kanin wrote that while the Moscow boycott did not succeed in moving the Games from the Soviet capital, it did rob the authorities of the sense of international legitimacy hosting the Games normally confers on the host country.
“There was no way for the Soviet government to hide from its people the depth of anger over Afghanistan, nor to embellish an event now largely reduced to the level of a Warsaw Pact inter-army game,” Kanin wrote.
“This does not mean that Soviet citizens began to question government policy, only that they knew that many countries doubted Soviet explanations of it.”
Wait for more post related,there are catholic conservatives who support it,click in rutherford.org about abortion issue in china informations.
The Olympics should be boycotted, anyway, period…
… I’ve done so for the last few Olympiads; I can’t stand the pagan, “one world”, humanist ethos; not to mention the doping and steroids; the politicized, biased judging; the overly commercial nature of it all; the corrupt IOC’s decision-making processes (whoever wines them and dines them best, buys them off)…
Evidently, the paganism was even more explicit than ever before, in the recent Athenian Olympics’ opening ceremonies, with an artistic dance/performance-art homage to Zeus, or so I read… (Mind you, in the last Olympics I watched, I didn’t like the sumo wrestlers in Nagano ceremonially “purifying” the stadium, whatever the heck that means. Of course, it could be that I simply don’t care to see big giant fat pony-tailed men in diapers, but hey, that’s me…)
Politics, and boycotts over political reasons, have always been part and parcel of the Olympics, and have always produced distorted results…
Corporate sponsorship of Olympic events have reached such ridiculously all-encompassing levels that people were banned from bringing non-sponsor food items onto the grounds in Athens…
I see nothing positive about the Olympics, that can’t be accomplished in simply having international amateur competitions for each of the sports in question – and without professional “dream team” athletes unfairly being allowed to compete against amateurs…
I hate the Olympics; there’s a million and one reasons to dislike them, and few valid reasons to like them, IMO. Boycott them, period… If that makes me a spoilsport, a curmudgeon despite my relatively small number of years, oh well…
VDARE’s 2004 War On Christmas Competition has begun
See http://vdare.com/asp/printPage.asp?url=http://vdare.com/pb/2004_christmas_p1.htm here.
China bans Christmas joy in Shanghai media
Financial Times (12/03/04):
The Shanghai media has been ordered to play down any stories that promote Christmas, a celebration the city’s propaganda chiefs worry may come to rival traditional Chinese festivals. The directive was contained this week in on e of the regular missives that the propaganda department sends out to all . . .continued hereˇ¿
How would we like it if Buddhism rivaled Christianity here?
The Chinese must not appreciate being culturally colonized by us any more than we’d appreciate being culturally colonized by them. I see nothing wrong with China’s authorities trying to limit the growth of Christmas (just as I see everything wrong with certain forces in this country trying to stamp Christmas out).
Notice how appealing must be what in reality amounts to the Christmas spirit. Someone in the article says Christmas in China is purely commercial. No. It’s the other way around. Things have to be extremely appealing first, then they can be commercial. Unappealing things don’t entice people into stores to make purchases.
One Chinaman quoted in the article says the expansion of Christmas there is inevitable. That seems somehow not right—makes me, for one, feel uneasy. There’s supposed to be a China in the world. And the China there’s supposed to be doesn’t celebrate Christmas (just as the Europe there’s supposed to be does). China is supposed to be Buddhist, not Christian. I’d feel more comfortable if the missionaries out there all came home.
Given Christmas’s strength, think what the Christmas haters, those trying to stamp Christmas out here, are up against.
________________________
“If a tree falls and an expert doesn’t hear it, is there a sound?” Yes, the sweetest, most melodious sound in all creation: the sound of entropy being brought clanking, screeching, grinding to a halt.
China is not supposed to be Christian?
Mr. Scrooby, your statement about China and Christianity really encapsulates everything that is wrong with integralist traditionalism as an ideology. Cultural universalism is an obvious error, but so is every form traditionalism and particularism which excludes Christianity. Men are different, yes—but not that different. As John Henry Newman told the world, every man was “born to be a Catholic.”
Please don’t consider me a spokesman for anything
I’m no spokesman for traditionalism. No doubt I’m getting it wrong in lots of ways. I’m also a different kind of Christian than many of the good people who post here—a worse one, I’m sure.
________________________
“If a tree falls and an expert doesn’t hear it, is there a sound?” Yes, the sweetest, most melodious sound in all creation: the sound of entropy being brought clanking, screeching, grinding to a halt.
What I want from Christians like Mr. Culbreath
Mr. Culbreath, since you mention “forms of traditionalism and particularism which exclude Christianity,” and having very vividly in mind my conversations with you some months ago (I’m “Unadorned”), I’ll add if I may that all I would like from Christians like you is an admission that Christianity does not consider it wrong for people to prefer to preserve the racial and ethno-cultural identies of their communities and nations and to take reasonable steps in that direction.
________________________
“If a tree falls and an expert doesn’t hear it, is there a sound?” Yes, the sweetest, most melodious sound in all creation: the sound of entropy being brought clanking, screeching, grinding to a halt.
Christianity and Racial Preservation
Hello Unadorned. Yes, I remember our discussions. The problem with any racial/ethnic preservation policy in America (I assume you are talking about public policy here) is that it would almost certainly have to subordinate greater goods. That is, things like national unity, civic unity, regional unity, family unity, religious unity, etc., would be torn asunder in the name of racial or ethnic preservation.
If this is not the case – if racial preservation in your view would NOT require breaking up existing social units – then I’m not sure what you mean by “racial preservation” exactly.
If you are just saying that you think immigration should from henceforth be restricted to whites only, well, that doesn’t do much for racial prervation since there already exist multi-racial social units in place and functioning well. Something will have to be done about them too.
Where does it end?
We are slowly and methodically being homogenized into a brainwashed society of valueless pedagogues. We rant and pontificate about the dilution of our values and beliefs but are unwilling to remove the pathogens that are eating into the body of our religion, values, family structure and other cornerstones of moral based living. Think about it the next time you click on the TV or pop in a movie or pickup a magazine. Think about it as the stream of unending conditioning is absorbed into your eyes – your children’s eyes – and as the commercial assault on your being slowly tears away your ideas about what used to be considered embarrassing or taboo or off-limits or vulgar or unacceptable. Think about it as you watch celebrities and the neo-elite living in a state of public moral degradation as they openly and purposely abuse and corrupt our legal and political systems. Our regulating bodies determine that we shouldn’t hear four letter words before 10:00 pm but the airwaves are full of blasphemy and vulgarity used as punctuation and emphasis in everything from news broadcasts to cartoons. Taking the lords name in vain is as common and as acceptable as promiscuous sex, references to violence, death and murder and the wholesale assault on religious beliefs.
From the perspective of the devil, who could have guessed that his most audacious attacks would come in the most subtle of forms? Parents are scared to send their children to the bathroom at McDonalds alone for fear of abduction or molestation yet we allow our children to be morally assailed everyday on their way to secular schools. Schools that treat faith, hope and charity like medieval abominations while they promote evolution, faithless atmospheres that won’t allow the pledge of allegiance, and the absurdity of gay proms and sexual education that teaches one view only. Where does it end? How do we open our eyes? How have we gone so far from the morals that created the ‘greatest generation’ in such a short amount of time? Think about it.
Is the cost of a return to sanity the removal of all distractions? “The devil’s snare doesn’t catch you unless you are already nibbling at the devil’s bait.†– St. Ambrose of Milan
Be aware with Brainwashing theory
This Behaviorist/Marxist theory invented by Liberal Prochoice Margareth Singer has made many damage. Stop to believe in it.http://www.cesnur.org/cgi-bin/swish.cgi?query=brainwashing
Q, along with you we’re sick of it. Each of us can help end it.
“Where does it end? How do we open our eyes?” (—Q, 12/7, 10:58am)
It ends with you, Q. And me. And Will S. And Muhlenberg. And Jeff Culbreath. And André. And Mr. Henri. The counterrevolution starts with you and with each of us individually. By refusing to bend you’ve already taken the first step on the long road that lies ahead and, in fact, the only step you or anyone can take, at first: just refuse to bend. You don’t have to work wonders, start a movement, run for office, found a magazine or web-site, or give a speech. You have only to not bend. You. No one else. Just you. The rest will come, as surely as the dawn. Long ago and far away, twenty-four saints and eight unbaptized faithful also asked themselves “where it ended.” They had no power; no one was coming to help or rescue them: what could they do? Answering their own question, they finally understood that it ended right there with them alone—with their own refusal to bend. And when dawn came twenty-four and eight had become ten thousand.
So shall each of us who refuses to bend become ten thousand, for day is dawning.
No generation is excused from having to fight for what it loves. The blessing for our generation is the lightness of the burden we carry, of the responsibility history has placed on our shoulders, compared to the burden borne by those saints and faithful who went before, who were called upon to “go into the gulf of death unterrified.” The burden history has thrust upon us compared to that is an easy one.
It’s a burden we, each of us, can shoulder.
________________________
“If a tree falls and an expert doesn’t hear it, is there a sound?” Yes, the sweetest, most melodious sound in all creation: the sound of entropy being brought clanking, screeching, grinding to a halt.
Yes Fred I was snide
I’m a victim of society. What can I say? Never thought I would end up here but the death threats got to me. I simply don’t care anymore. S?
Race and Christianity
I don’t expect I will agree with Big Brother’s view about race anytime soon, but who knows if I allow him to work on me. Big Brother seems to rely on the premise that race is a morally repulsive factor one ought not to consider in deciding what to do next. He might be right. I don’t have a syllogism to prove him wrong, not that we are governed by a philosophical construct in any event.
There is evidence to the contrary though. Birds of a feather flock together. Races segregate themselves. Races are manifestly different: they look different, act differently, and are intellectually different.
Is racial preference a base instinct such as theft, adultery, murder, or envy? Not that I know of. Maybe someone can make a case for the proposition that racial preference violates one of the Ten Commandments.
In any event, I would be delighted to hear rebuttals.
Liberal on Race?
Lest anyone think I’m dodging Mr. Scrooby’s question, I should come right out and admit that I don’t think race is something that needs preserving for its own sake. Racial and ethnic groups change with every marital union. The pace and degree of change may be controlled by various means, but I think this sort of thing is best regulated by the families and individuals involved.
(Cue “Somali Bantu” immigration argument.)
Yes, about those Bantus. Let me just state for the record that the immigration of any people with formidable language, religion, and culture barriers – apart from an effective assimilation apparatus – is a bad idea. Unless, of course, there is a greater good involved, which is certainly possible (e.g., saving lives).
(Cue “But the Somali Bantus are unassimilable” argument.)
Yes, about assimilation. I don’t know enough about the Bantus to have good opinion, but I suspect that most human beings under 30 years of age, living anywhere in the world, are capable of enough assimilation to be functional in American society. Not perfect assimilation, but sufficient assimilation.
I’m an American, and America is a land with people from all over. That’s the America that greeted me from Day One, and I accept it for what it is. There’s nothing inherently good or bad about this. Racial “diversity” is neither strength nor, necessarily, weakness. What is important is that Americans of all races forge enough of a common culture to revive our civilization. If that is not possible on a national level, then it should forged on a local level, not along racial lines, but along religious and cultural lines.
Finally …
… a direct answer. Sorry it took so long.
Christianity, as I understand it, does not forbid anyone from preferring one particular racial identity or taking “reasonable steps” to preserve that identity. The problem is that there is usually more to the question than this.
The Christian religion always goes to motive. Christ our King always asks, “Why?” I think this is where racialism usually breaks down. The Christian racialist will say only that he prefers, say, whites, because he is white himself, and that he believes races are good things in themselves and worthy of preservation just as they are. Good so far. But that really isn’t enough. Christianity doesn’t just say “Y has value”, it says that “Y has more value than X and less value than Z”. That is, to choose Y over Z would be wrong from a Christian point of view, and racial preservation, in the language of most racialists, usually involves just that.
So we are faced not just with the question of racial preservation as a value, but racial preservation as one value among many competing values. Christianity has something to say about this.
Thank you
In the first two parts of that three-part response you said essentially that you weren’t interested in “race” or races as such. That’s OK. That’s legitimate—there are plenty of people who either don’t see races or just aren’t interested in them. We’re all made differently.
From the third part:
“Christianity, as I understand it, does not forbid anyone from preferring one particular racial identity or taking ‘reasonable steps’ to preserve that identity. […] The Christian [normal person may] say […] that he prefers, say, whites, because he is white himself, and that he believes races are good things in themselves and worthy of preservation just as they are. Good so far.”
That much I got. The rest of part three I didn’t understand but don’t repeat it. It’s OK. Let’s leave it at that …
Thank you.
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“If a tree falls and an expert doesn’t hear it, is there a sound?” Yes, the sweetest, most melodious sound in all creation: the sound of entropy being brought clanking, screeching, grinding to a halt.
Where you when it ever happened?
http://www.acpr.org.il/cloakrm/clk117.html
Christians ought simply to reject this élite self-righteousness
“Schools all across the country are celebrating ‘National Inclusive Schools Week’ this week. But if anything should be banned from the schools, it is this invidious application of inclusion. It is one thing to be sensitive to students from diverse backgrounds, quite another to use the concept of inclusion as a weapon to censor true diversity.”
____
“In Michigan’s historic Village of Franklin, they used to have a Holly Day Festival this time of year. But now they have progressed to calling it the Franklin Winter Festival. Why? Because as Les Gorback said (he is a prominent store owner who pushed for the name change), ‘Holly Day had the connotation it was strictly a Christmas holiday festival.’ Gorback said, ‘we wanted to try to make it more inclusive, so we changed the name.’ Why he didn’t simply move to cancel Christmas, he did not say.”
____
“The latest Newsweek poll shows that 84 percent of Americans are Christian; Jews represent less than two percent. In other words, the U.S. is more Christian than Israel is Jewish (approximately 72 percent of Israelis are Jewish), yet it is Christmas, not Hanukkah, that is considered controversial to celebrate.”
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“If a tree falls and an expert doesn’t hear it, is there a sound?” Yes, the sweetest, most melodious sound in all creation: the sound of entropy being brought clanking, screeching, grinding to a halt.
I think the elites’ anti-Christmas attitudes show that…
… it’s high time Christians pulled their children from public schools, and instead place them into religious or traditionalist private schools (or homeschool them)… Of course, these may not be viable options for all, but everyone should consider: sending kids to public schools means sending them into the hands of the anti-Christian elite, who will have them for about 6-8 hours a day (or whatever it is), and hence plenty of time to indoctrinate them with liberalism…
I’m assuming that most private and Roman Catholic schools (and Protestant schools, etc.) won’t have these crazy anti-Christmas attitudes, but of course, perhaps some of them might be infected, too… In any event, I do know a Christian couple who pulled their kids out of a Christian school, and sent them back into the public school system, since they were being taught gross theological errors in that particular Christian school, and they felt it was more damaging for their kids to be exposed to error which they might accept uncritically (given that it was a Christian school, and hence supposedly doctrinally sound), rather than the errors of the public school system, which, in their particular experience, were actually less bad than those they’d encountered in that Christian school, and moreover, they could more easily set their kids straight, since their kids would have a healthy skepticism, or willingness to check things out with their folks, knowing public education’s biases…
So, despite my first paragraph in this post, and despite my previous stated opinion some time ago, http://jkalb.freeshell.org/posts/board/messages//7.html here, I recognize there isn’t a one single right answer universally applicable, and that everyone will have to consider their particular situation, and decide accordingly.
Those who hated “the Passion” with a passion also hate Christmas
VDARE’s War On Christmas 2004 Competition (IV), http://vdare.com/asp/printPage.asp?url=http://vdare.com/bevens/041209_christmas_p4.htm here.
No surprises, really; Abraham Foxman and his ilk in the ADL are anti-Christian bigots, plain and simple. They seem to think opposing anti-Semitism entails opposing public expression of Christianity…
Sam Francis on the meaning of the War on Christmas
http://vdare.com/asp/printPage.asp?url=http://vdare.com/francis/041309_war_on_the_west.htm Here.
(Thomas Fleming had some interesting comments, back in 2000, on the War on Christmas, and elevation of other festivals, http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/HardRight/HardRight122200.html here.)
history of Kwanzaa and its founder, in poem form
http://www.spectator.org/util/print.asp?art_id=5914 Here.
It never stops. Some Christma
It never stops. Some Christmas cheer. “The Passion” used as a lead in to a film about Hitler:
Michael Medved made an observation yesterday on (Laura Ingraham’s radio show about the animonsity to the film. He said all the criticisms from many (antisemitic, not true to the Gospels, a “Chainsaw Massacre” etc) are insincere. It is loathed for one reason only: The Passion is pro-Christian. That alone is why it is being shunned for awards.e
This item should not have been published without further facts
When someone—not Will S.—a week ago sent me this same item that Mr. Kalb has allowed Will to link, I replied to my correspondent that there were no facts here, only a fragmentary report by one person writing one incomplete e-mail. I told my correspondent that he couldn’t repeat these claims as true, let alone call for a “Christian boycott of Boscov’s”— in the absence of more solid evidence. This was all the more so since the claim is extremely unlikely on the face of it. Does anyone really believe that a major department store simply banned all holiday cards using the word Christmas? It’s inconceivable, and I think any reasonably prudent and fairminded person would not accept it as true in the absence of established facts confirming it to be true.
Here is the entire e-mail on which the claim is based, and which apparently many people are simply accepting as true:
The first thing that leaps out is, does it make sense that Boscov would print cards that only say “Merry”? This frankly sounds like something concocted by a subnormal person, like something you’d expect to see if Monty Python made a movie about anti-Semites.
Update on pcwatch original post
Here.
PC leads down strange paths
Kwanzaa is apparently de rigueur in the world of PC—you see it everywhere on AOL for example, always side-by-side with Hannukah and Christmas. The leftists at AOL never leave it out. Might Boscov’s have left the “Merry …” greeting incomplete so that people could fill in “Merry Kwanzaa”?
If that’s the explanation, they probably should get boycotted anyway—but for having extremely bad taste, not for suppressing Christmas …
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“If a tree falls and an expert doesn’t hear it, is there a sound?” Yes, the sweetest, most melodious sound in all creation: the sound of entropy being brought clanking, screeching, grinding to a halt.
PC Watch now admits the charge against Boscov’s is false
The updated information posted at PC Watch which Will S. has linked, evidently in response to my criticism of his original posting, indicates that it is not greeting cards at Boscov’s that lack the word “Christmas,” but rather some kind of credit card-sized item called a gift card that is used for purchases in the store. These little credit cards say “Merry” followed by a Christmas style image. I said last night that it was impossible that Boscov’s had no greeting cards with the word Christmas. My statement has turned out to be correct. PC Watch’s charge has been reduced to complaining that the gift cards for “Happy Hannukah” have the word “Hannukah,” but the gift cards for “Merry” just have Christmas decorations instead of the word “Christmas.” That is still objectionable, but it is an order of magnitude less objectionable than the charge that the store has excluded all greetings cards with the word Christmas. The lack of symmetry concerning the gift cards justifies complaints to the store, it does not justify a “Christian boycott” of the store.
Will S. posted his ridiculous and false charges and the call for a “Christian boycott” against Boscov’s almost a week ago. Why did no reader of this forum notice the absurdity of the charge until I came along and pointed it out? Are we now living in the age of the Blood Libel, when any charge against Jews of committing some anti-Christian act, no matter how ridiculous and unbelievable the charge is, is automatically believed?
And, while both PC Watch and Will S. deserve credit for coming forth with the truth, notice the _way_ that they deal with the truth. Instead of saying, “We blew it, we published this e-mail and accepted its statements, even though what the e-mail said was unbelievable on its face,” instead of admitting any of that, they simply post, without comment, the updated information, while still acting as if the lack of symmetry in the gift cards is as serious as a lack of symmetry in greeting cards.
That’s what Maureen Dowd did after her misleading and false quotation of President Bush (making him appear to say the opposite of what he had actually said) was exposed. Instead of retracting and apologizing for her previous false quotation, she simply published the correct quote without comment. That is cowardly at best. It is the mark of the type of person who, even though one particular bigoted and false comment of his has been exposed, cannot apologize for it, because he still clings to the bigotry that led him to publish it in the first place.
Here is the updated information at PC Watch which Will S. linked:
Further clarification
The original e-mail did not refer to greeting cards but to gift cards. However, in the absence of any particular information about what a “gift card” is, which information was only supplied by PC Watch’s later update, readers would all assume that gift card meant greeting card and that the word Christmas had been systematically banned from all greeting cards sold at Boscov’s.
Next “Lawrence” defines what “is” “is”
We all know what the deal “is” Auster.No need to ramble.on
Muhlenberg, was that tone called for?
Muhlenberg, I’m one who didn’t get the impression anyone was rambling in this thread. I found the comments by all posters in the thread, including Lawrence Auster’s and Will S.’s, extremely valuable and thought-provoking. I think your insinuation (mainly in the title of your comment, which evoked the image of Clinton testifying before the Grand Jury) that Mr. Auster is insincere in his forum discussions is not only wrong and uncalled for but a little shocking, especially coming from a Turnabout regular, Turnabout being View From the Right’s closely allied sister site.
Finally, about “what the deal ‘is’ “: I wonder if you could explain that. We can say controversial things at this site, as far as I’m aware, so why the snideness in making that remark? At the risk of being completely wrong, I’ll take a guess about what “the deal is”: if it’s to do with the delicate fact that Jews and Jewish groups are prominent among those who oppose public expressions of Christmas it’s something we here (and likely the whole world) already know, including Lawrence Auster, and it’s fine to bring it up in a thread such as this, but why not politely? Why the snideness when addressing a man who has discussed things along these lines many times at his own forum completely objectively (and has said he’d be perfectly willing to discuss them more, were it not for the fact that each time he did it attracted all the genuine anti-Semites to his forum)? Bringing up the subject of Jews’ opposition to Christmas isn’t shocking. What’s shocking is the snideness.
(I’m no angel in that regard, having dished out more than my share of snide sarcasm when I get the feeling I’m talking to a brick wall who just can’t be reasoned with. But Auster’s not exactly a brick wall who just can’t be reasoned with.)
If “what the deal is” has to do with something else than this particular subject, what is it then?
I, you, Mr. Auster, and most people who come to this site oppose the forces trying to stamp out public expression of Christmas.
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“If a tree falls and an expert doesn’t hear it, is there a sound?” Yes, the sweetest, most melodious sound in all creation: the sound of entropy being brought clanking, screeching, grinding to a halt.
I wasn’t motivated by bigotry; rather anger at perceived bigotry
I do not care about the beliefs and/or ethnic group identification of those that run Boscov’s, I was merely ticked off at what seemed to me, on the surface, as anti-Christian bigotry – and it is still objectionable, to have gift cards which will avoid reference to Christmas but have no such objection to other religious festivals. We do have a real “war against Christmas” going on – see VDARE for multiple examples of such. And a “War against Thanksgiving”, and against the Confederate flag, and so on. In this era, where many (perhaps even on our side, too, as a response, I’ll admit) are hypersensitive about offense, the charges levelled against Boscov’s were not unbelievable, in and of themselves. Daily, we read accounts of absurdities wherein people are offended by little things, and seek to have them banned.
BTW, I originally linked johnjayray’s cross-posting to majorityrights.com, so if I am to be taken to task for either sloppiness or perceived bigotry, along with PCWATCH, then majorityrights.com ought to be, as well.
As for my “being allowed to post” something, this forum is largely, if not completely, unmoderated (posting can be made directly), and people can pretty much post anything, and of course, anyone can respond, as they see fit… Freedom of speech for all is a wonderful thing; let’s hope and pray it lasts…
Will S. justifies himself
Will S. justifies what he himself calls his “anger”-driven assumption that a major department store banned all greeting cards containing the word Christmas. He bases his assumption on the many other outrageous attacks on Christmas in recent years. So, on one hand, one can’t entirely blame him for jumping the gun. On the other hand, he should have seen that there is a big difference between, say, Christian things being closed out of public institutions such as schools, and Christian things being closed out of Christmas season Christmas cards, on sale to the public, in a large department store! I repeat that the sheer unlikelihood of the latter being the case, combined with the brevity of the e-mail that was reporting it, should have warned Will S. and John Ray and others to have verified the facts before jumping into publication calling for a “Christian” boycott of a Jewish-owned department store over such a transparently specious charge.
I repeat, this item should not have been published. For Will S. to defend the publication of this misleading and incendiary e-mail on the basis of “freedom” means that he is defining freedom as license, the license to do whatever he likes.
Some are calling for a boycott of Federated Department Stores
See here for the details.
We’re letting our cultural enemies have it entirely their way
Here’s the NewsMax.com item linked in Bryanna Bevens’ Vdare.com log entry which Will S. linked (must scroll far down the very long page):
_____
Friday, Dec. 3, 2004 12:59 p.m. EST
Macy’s Nixing “Merry Christmas”?
The store made internationally famous by the Christmas classic “Miracle on 34th Street” is reportedly phasing out any direct mention of the holiday in this year’s seasonal promotions.
“Instead of Merry Christmas the message appearing in ads and store displays is ‘Season’s Greetings’ or ‘Happy Holidays,’ ” reports WABC Radio newsman George Weber.
A statement posted to the Web site of Macy’s owner, Federated Department Stores, denies that there’s any company-wide directive to purge direct mentions of Christmas from Macy’s and other Federated outlets.
“Federated has no policy with regard to the use of specific references to Christmas in any of its divisional advertising or promotions. Our divisions are free to advertise in their local markets in any manner they choose. … Our employees are free to wish any customer a Merry Christmas.”
Still, Federated admits to bowing somewhat to the dictates of modern-day political correctness, noting:
“There are, however, many diverse cultures represented in American society today whose views we also recognize and respect. Phrases such as ‘season’s greetings’ and ‘happy holidays’ embrace all of the various religious, secular and ethnic celebrations that take place in the November/December period. [Yeah—like Kwanzaa, the ridiculous invented holiday that only makes those of a particular race who try to “celebrate” it look ridiculous in turn, and Winter Solstice Festival, the monstrosity leftists are trying to shove down our kids’ throats in place of Christmas—Fred Scrooby note]
“Because these expressions of good will are more reflective of the multi-cultural society in which we live today, they tend to be used more and more frequently across all segments of society. In fact, few if any national retailers or businesses now take a different approach to celebrating the season.”
_____
As Will S. points out, Vdare.com’s Bryanna Bevens is considering boycotting Bloomingdale’s because of behavior like this. What’s happening is tribalism, not universalism. If Americans want to keep the culture and traditions they hold most dear they must, among other things, rise up in no uncertain terms and force George Bush to bring to a halt his pet project of replacing the original U.S. population with other peoples he insists on bringing in in their millions and tens of millions. The American people have to learn they can’t have it both ways: can’t have open borders and still be Americans, any more than the Ugandans can have open borders and still be Ugandans, the Vietnamese can have open borders and still be Vietnamese, the Irish can have open borders and still be Irish, or the French can have open borders and still be French. Anyone who says differently is spouting a bunch of boob bait for the conservative Bush-loving bubbas. (For those bubbas who’ve had some college, it’s called sophistry …). And of course it goes without saying it’s one hundred percent right to boycott stores that pull this stunt. That’s called self-defense against attack (largely attack by other tribes, by the way, for any who think this is at bottom genuine universalism: it’s not, but to a large extent the opposite: genuine tribalism).
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“If a tree falls and an expert doesn’t hear it, is there a sound?” Yes, the sweetest, most melodious sound in all creation: the sound of entropy being brought clanking, screeching, grinding to a halt.
Something’s not right about Christians converting other cultures
Eliécer, just to mention—Christian concern about the world’s different races along the lines of the Joshua Project wasn’t what I was referring to in my question to Jeff Culbreath. But thanks very much for giving the URLs of the Joshua Project in your two comments. I’d never heard of the Joshua Project before, and I find the work they’re doing very interesting to read about. That said, I’ll add something about my views that I realize goes against most standard Christian teaching: my personal preference is against converting the whole world to Christianity. I feel the world is vastly richer for having all the world’s religions, for one thing, and for another, all peoples and societies have a right to not be converted, but to continue to cherish their traditional religions, cultures, and ways of life. The Bible is universally available for any who may want to read it, as are books galore on Bible commentary and Christianity. If people choose to adopt Christianity entirely on their own, fine. But I don’t agree with efforts of Westerners to convert them. Unless I’m misinformed, about 25% – 30% of the population of South Korea is now Christian and the percentage is growing. Was undertaking the conversion of South Korea necessary? I don’t think so. They have an extremely rich, beautiful, and deep culture and way of life of their own. Why must they lose that? If Korea gets converted entirely to Christianity the world will be a poorer place. If the whole world were converted, the world would be an immensely, incalculably poorer place. It would be just an incredible disaster.
Do I think preserving non-Christian cultures and religions is more important than saving heathen souls? I don’t view it that way. I view it as “Christianity is right for me, and their religions are right for them.” Let each respect the other, not try to impose his truth on the other.
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“If a tree falls and an expert doesn’t hear it, is there a sound?” Yes, the sweetest, most melodious sound in all creation: the sound of entropy being brought clanking, screeching, grinding to a halt.
That’s a disturbing, theologically relativist view, Fred…
“I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
(John 14:6)
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.”
(John 3:16-18)
The above quotes, Fred, are from Jesus Christ. He is the only Way, and those who don’t believe in Him, and what He has done, and who don’t have Him as their Saviour, are condemned to hell. We’ve been given a Great Commission, to spread the gospel to the four corners of the world:
Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
(Matthew 28:18-20)
Scripture is quite clear, and a summary of Scriptural doctrine which is held by Roman Catholics, Lutherans, and Reformed alike, http://www.canrc.org/resources/bop/athan/ the Athanasian Creed, begins and ends thus:
(1) Whoever desires to be saved must above all things hold to the catholic faith. (2) Unless a man keeps it in its entirety inviolate, he will assuredly perish eternally.
{…}
(42) This is the catholic faith. Unless a man believes it faithfully and steadfastly, he cannot be saved. Amen.
I can appreciate the “live and let live” desire, but it’s not an option for orthodox Christians. (Of any stripe – you noticed, in the account of the martyred missionaries in Uganda, which you linked earlier, that they consisted of both Roman Catholics and Protestants; both traditions have emphasized the importance of spreading the Word, and thus the Faith, everywhere…) Christ is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and without Him, people perish for their sins. BTW, South Korea is now apparently over 50% Christian – and I assure you, from friends I know who’ve been there and from other Asians, they still very much have their culture, and do Asian things we’d find revolting, e.g. eat dogs and cats… (And they still speak Korean, and have names like Kim and Lee and Park and Jung… And drink disgustingly, cloyingly sweet rice wines, ick… I’ve had them – don’t!) But, praise God, some of them have been saved, and get to spend eternity with the Lord, as will the faithful here in the West.
There is One Truth, to which, either men subscribe, and live eternally, or don’t subscribe, and perish, burning in everlasting hell. That’s the Gospel…
BTW, I’m very glad our forebears evangelized the Nigerians, because now Anglicans and Episcopalians, in Canada and the U.S., respectively, can look to the leadership of Bishop Akinola, who, you recall, is considering allowing orthodox Anglicans over here to have their churches be under his jurisdiction, thus resisting the “gay”-rights, gay-ordination trend… Akinola, and the African Anglicans in general, are staunch traditionalists, while the North American church, and the British one for that matter, too (and doubtless the same in Australia and New Zealand), are liberal, apostate denominations, rejecting Biblical truths in favour of liberal, politically correct B.S. Praise God, for the faithful African Anglican church! Which we wouldn’t have, if the missionaries had been relativistic, rather than following the Great Commission, and going where they felt the Lord leading them…
Speaking of the Athanasian Creed…
… I know this is off on a tangent, but thinking about the Athanasian Creed reminded me of an essay which incorporated the whole Athanasian Creed into it; IMO, a very inspirational essay; it’s a Lutheran pastor’s reflections, a couple Christmases back, and relevant as ever today. Go http://www.markdankof.com/the_mystery_of_christmas.htm here to read it.
Thank you Will S. for those helpful explanations
Thank you for that very thoughtful, helpful reply. I’ll certainly think further on the subject. I agree with you about Nigeria and Bishop Akinola, thanks to whom, as you remind us, Episcopalians in the U.S. have additional hope that there will be congregations available to them which are not completely taken over by the homosexualist agenda where, if need be, they can go and worship without leaving Anglicanism. Bishop Akinola is a wonderful man.
What I said, incidentally, about respecting already-existing religions and cultures rather than trying to convert them was meant to apply to civilized religions and cultures like the Korean, Chinese, Middle-Eastern Moslem, and so on. Uncivilized ones, such as existed among Eskimos, non-Moslem Black Africans, and so on, are a different story.
Since I participate in this forum a lot, I’ll add a word about myself which may partly explain my lack of understanding of many Christian things (I’m still learning): my upbringing as far as religion is concerned was a little complicated and I don’t have orthodox views, as things have worked out, not by choice but by ignorance and having had to cobble things together for myself. Briefly, I was educated as a Catholic child until I think the summer between my fourth and fifth grades, then was abruptly pulled out of all Catholic education and practice (when my mother got the upper hand over my father) and raised atheist thereafter and to ridicule Christianity at every opportunity. After college I began to find my way back to Christianity, a long process that took years. I’m ignorant of a great many Christian ideas and practices and often don’t have standard views and feelings about things Christian, by ignorance. I consider myself a Catholic (I was never confirmed). (I’m married to a Catholic Walloon who has raised our kids Catholic.)
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“If a tree falls and an expert doesn’t hear it, is there a sound?” Yes, the sweetest, most melodious sound in all creation: the sound of entropy being brought clanking, screeching, grinding to a halt.
Ah, I see…
I pray you will be guided into a sharper (and more orthodox) understanding of your faith.
For my part, I was raised in a liberal denomination, the United Church of Canada – kinda similar to the United Church of Christ in your country – and was led out of it, by God’s grace, about twelve years ago. I shortly thereafter became an evangelical Protestant, worshipping in a variety of different churches, but I became disillusioned with evangelicalism, and have left it behind, and by God’s grace, have become Reformed – and I’m staying put, this time…
I see no reason for a distinction between civilized pagans and uncivilized pagans – both should have the Word preached to them, and the opportunity to embrace (or reject) it. Like I said, South Korea is half-converted now, and remains Korean, in their language, habits, customs, etc. In other words, their embrace of the faith hasn’t weakened their culture, or made them less Korean. So I don’t think one need fear about others’ losing their cultures – I know some Iraqi Christians here in Canada, and I assure you, they speak Arabic, eat Middle Eastern food, etc. – their faith makes them no less Iraqi… (I might wish, as immigrants, that they’d leave behind more of their distinctives; further, I might wish that Canada would not let in so many non-Western immigrants, but those are other concerns, not relevant to this discussion, per se.)
Some of the cultures here in North America which groups like the Jesuits found and worked to convert, e.g. the Iroquois, were quite civilized, in terms of technological and social development – and in central and South America, the Aztecs, Mayans, and Incas were even more so. That didn’t discourage the Spaniards from evangelizing them… In fact, it made it, in their minds, all the more imperative to convert them – and destroy such elements of their pagan idolatry as human sacrifice… Some cultural practices, should be destroyed…
Thank you
“I pray you will be guided into a sharper (and more orthodox) understanding of your faith.” (—Will S.)
Thank you.
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“by God’s grace” (—also from Will’s post)
That’s a beautiful expression, “by God’s grace.”
Amazing grace! How sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found;
Was blind, but now I see.
[…]
Through many dangers, toils and snares,
I have already come;
’Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far,
And grace will lead me home.
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“If a tree falls and an expert doesn’t hear it, is there a sound?” Yes, the sweetest, most melodious sound in all creation: the sound of entropy being brought clanking, screeching, grinding to a halt.
BTW, Fred, I was wondering:
>(I’m married to a Catholic Walloon who has raised our kids Catholic.)
Given your having a Belgian connection, what do you, and/or your wife, think about the Vlaams Belang, and Belgium’s troubles in general – do you sympathize with the Walloons or the Flemings, notwithstanding that your wife is Walloon? (For example, for my part, as an English-Canadian, while I don’t want to see Canada break up, I can understand why Quebecois see themselves as distinct from the rest of Canada – they are, plain and simple – and why some feel secession is the only way they can preserve their distinctiveness, in the face of a nation that is 3/4 non-French-Canadian – and next to an English-speaking nation ten times bigger, and culturally predominant, making the French-speaking population a tiny island in an English-speaking sea… (Moi, je parle francais – un peu – et j’ai les amies francophones… (I speak some French, and have French-speaking friends…)) So, I have a bit of a different perspective than most English-Canadians, who tend to only consider things from their own vantage point, and not be able to see things from the Quebecois POV…)
I love Flanders AND Wallonia AND support the Vlaams Belang
Thank you for that question, Will.
I support efforts by the Flemings to preserve themselves as a race(*), culture, ethnicity, ethno-culture, and nation (yes some of those overlap—I wanted to make sure I left no gaps). These are good, salt-of-the-earth people seeking only redress of legitimate grievances. May they prevail and prosper!
I do question the Belang’s preference for republicanism over monarchy. I’m starting to feel that monarchy, for all its faults, forms a slightly stronger bulwark than republican government against the sorts of socially destructive forces Turnabout came into being to question. Yes, yes, we all know how many European monarchies are marching toward their destruction shoulder-to-shoulder with doomed republics and just as enthusiastically. Certainly, the pathology of these Lemmings of the West needs further study before anyone can identify the germ and come up with a cure. I’d encourage Flanders in the meantime to plan on remaining a monarchy if ever it gain its independence from the monarchy it’s part of now.
I also sympathize with the Quebec nationalists, including those who want outright independence for Quebec.
I like countries, nations, races, sub-races, ethnicities, cultures, ethno-cultures, religions, tribes, traditions, languages, dialects, accents, special words, customs, heritages, national myths and legends, folktales, folksongs, folk memories, and so on. People who are strictly allergic to these things, I’m strictly allergic to. I oppose the forced annihilation of these things by governments doing the bidding of interested parties such as, e.g., rival races or ethnic groups, Wall Street, organizations of Marxists who see themselves as future Nomenklaturas, or organizations of self-righteous, selfish Christians who falsely want to appear self-abnegating. Any who support the preservation of these sorts of things have my sympathy.
At bottom what I don’t like is meaninglessness, and what I support is meaning.
“So, I have a bit of a different perspective than most English-Canadians, who tend to only consider things from their own vantage point, and not be able to see things from the Quebecois POV…”
That’s the way I am too.
_____
(* No, leftists, you’re not seeing things—I did say race. And yes, the Flemish are a different race from the Dutch to their north, the English across the Channel, the Walloons to their south, and the Germans to their west, just as all these are different races from them and different races from each other)
________________________
“If a tree falls and an expert doesn’t hear it, is there a sound?” Yes, the sweetest, most melodious sound in all creation: the sound of entropy being brought clanking, screeching, grinding to a halt.
Erratum
The Germans to their east, of course, not west.
Yes, monarchy is the way, IMO…
… I, too, as a patriotic, traditionalist Canadian, am a staunch monarchist, for a variety of reasons, not least of which is, I prefer my head of State to claim his/her authority to rule as being “Dei Gratia”, i.e. “By God’s Grace” (as each Canadian coin proclaims on the head side, in short form – “D.G. Regina” – “Queen, by the Grace of God”), rather than any such “of the people; by the people, for the people” malarkey; monarchy implicitly, if not explicitly to some degree, recognizes God and His sovereignty, where republicanism largely fails to do so (notwithstanding the “In God We Trust” on the coins). Among several other reasons, one partly related to the previous one is, I like having my head of State (who is chosen by God) separate from my head of government (who is indeed chosen by the people) – I’ve always been both amused and disturbed at the treasonous rhetoric that proceeds out of some Americans’ mouths when their favoured candidate loses – Limbaugh and dittoheads said “America held hostage” during the Clinton years; Democrats said “our REAL president” and “our REAL VP” about Gore and Liebermann, and now some want to move here to Canada because Kerry lost? (Stay home! We don’t want you! And http://colbycosh.com/#mfos stop wearing our flag and pretending to be us when in Europe, you blue-staters!)
The following are some excellent monarchist sites, with many arguments in favour of monarchy:
http://www.monarchist.ca/ The Monarchist League of Canada
http://www.interlog.com/~rakhshan/ Canadian Monarchist Online
http://www.monarchist.org.au/ The Australian Monarchist League
http://www.statusquo.org/ Australian Republic Unplugged
http://www.norepublic.com.au/ Australians For Constitutional Monarchy
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Lobby/8881/ Queenslanders for Constitutional Monarchy
http://www.geocities.com/cox_nz/index.html The Monarchist League of New Zealand
http://www.monarchy.net/ The Constitutional Monarchy Association and The International Monarchist League
http://members.tripod.com/~constantian/index.html The Constantian Society – American Monarchist Info Service
http://www.thinline.com/~ccoulomb/ Charles A. Coulombe
http://terrenceberres.com/stelib.html Liberty, Equality, Fraternity by James Fitzjames Stephen
And there’s lots more out there, including, oddly enough, tons at paleolibertarian website http://www.lewrockwell.com LRC.
“If Patrick Henry or James Otis or James Otis’s sister (Mercy Otis Warren) could come back and see what their descendants had done with the liberties they fought for, they would head straight to London and kiss the Queen’s big toe.” – http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/HardRight/HardRight070401.htm Thomas Fleming
“Now and then I’m asked whether the Clintons ever make me miss George Bush. Miss George Bush? Sometimes I miss George III.” – http://www.sobran.com/welcome2.shtml Joseph Sobran
Regarding Flanders: since the Flemings and the Dutch, who already share a common tongue and ethnic heritage, are both seemingly the most acutely aware amongst Europeans, of the dangers of unrestricted Islamic immigration, I’d love to see Flanders join the Netherlands, and come under their monarchy… The conservative Flemings could help the Dutch recover a non-liberal reason to oppose the dar-al-Islam’s conquest of Europe, by rediscovering who they are, what they were, what they lost, how they lost it, and what they must re-become to recover it… The Dutch would bestow on the Flemings the blessings of a monarchy which supports rather than opposes them… Ah well; I can dream…
I had objections to your post
1)British monarchy is more degenerated,pornographic and blasphemous in Europe,DragQueen Elizabeth of England is greedy,abusive toward workers, corrupted,vicious,scandalous,sexually filthy and permissive,confused in religious ideas and last but no least racialist. 2)Why reference to God in American coin is worthy nothing while mention to God in Canada is important? Acording to Apostle Paul God is no blesser from avarice,somebody living without working with 136 billlions dollars is avaricious,no it is?. 3)Spiritually comitted people in America are hardly criticized by you because his/her wrong political ideas or practices,but secularist,mundane,worldly Queen who never has evangelized,read the Bible or prayed/except in ritualized ways,rezos style/is supported by you,why?.
The Queen’s role is to rule; evangelization is the Church’s task
I recognize the moral degeneracy that infects the entire West, whether republican countries or monarchist ones, and I’m not saying that monarchies are perfect, utopias. I’m saying the cultural rots starts – or, rather, started, with the moral relativism that I believe is inescapable when people feel they, and not Providence, control their own destinies, who rules them, etc.; eventually you see demands by everyone for their “rights”, for “equality”. Liberal democracy leads to radical egalitarianism, naturally; no-one in a society that isn’t highly hierarchical (as the feudal societies of Europe of old were), and that officially endorses social egalitarianism, will put up with being treated differently from anyone else. Hence suffragism, abolitionism, feminism, gay rights, “children’s rights”, and even, sentimentally on behalf of creatures who can’t ask and can’t know enough to care, animal rights.
Naturally, since no country lives in a separate world from everyone else, this attitude spreads to monarchical societies as well.
I don’t see how the Queen and members of the Royal family are any worse than, say, Bill Clinton – and I haven’t seen Bush doing any more than QEII to evangelize, spread the Gospel, promote it, etc. (Bush isn’t a very good Christian, either – see http://www.bushrevealed.com/ BushRevealed.) Mind you, that’s the Church’s role, anyway; individuals are to always be ready to give a reason for the hope they have, as Scripture says, but the Great Commission is actually given to the Church, not to individuals. (After all, the Great Commission mentions the Sacrament of Baptism – I don’t know about you, but I’ve never baptized anybody… That’s the Church’s role. As usual, Anabaptists and their evangelical descendents miss the whole context, and have misunderstood this passage to mean that all Christians, as individuals, are responsible for evangelizing everyone they possibly can, and are directly responsible for leading people to Christ, as individuals, and not corporately, as the Church, through both Word and Sacrament.)
The Queen does work; she performs her largely ceremonial role, and that is her occupation; she rules by God’s grace – I totally reject any suggestion to the contrary. I don’t feel like getting into any big debates right now re: monarchy – read what people at the monarchist sites I previously linked have argued in favour of monarchy, I pretty much agree, with most of it, if not all, of their arguments. (I don’t know where you get that 136B figure, either, but never mind…) The Queen’s children may be morally problematic, but when did the Queen ever commit adultery, etc? And, like I said, Charles, and Andrew, etc., are no worse than Bill Clinton – and God can and has made use of grossly immoral rulers – God appointed Sampson, David, and Solomon to their positions, in spite of their flaws. He put them in their places, as Judge/Kings over Israel. (That doesn’t mean He endorsed their behaviour; on the contrary, they and/or Israel always suffered consequences – but nevertheless, they reigned.) So His having political servants today who are no better, is no different. The Queen is not Christ, nor is a republic’s president; both are flawed individuals, but that in and of itself doesn’t disqualify either for a God-given role as leader, any more than the same flaws did so for Sampson, David, or Solomon. So she’s anti-egalitarian, has some unfortunate theological misunderstandings (one doesn’t have to belong to the church of which she is the titular head; I certainly don’t – and I don’t consider her my spiritual authority – but she still is my head of State, and I a loyal subject); so it goes, here on Earth…
The Canadian coin – as with the British coins, which have the same head, pretty much – directly addresses the matter of who rules (the person whose image is shown is the actual ruler today, unlike a dead president depicted on a Yankee coin, and the inscription indicates why – she rules by God’s grace. “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s; render unto God the things that are God’s”, said Christ, when shown a denarius with Caesar’s inscription on it. The Canadian currency acknowledges this principle, at least implicitly, by showing who rules, and officially recognizing why she rules.) The American coins say “In God We Trust”, which is nice and all; but which God? Even though I’m not Anglican, the fact that the Queen is officially the titular head of the Anglican church, if I’m not mistaken, shows that the God she acknowledges – however imperfectly she does so – is the Christian God, YHWH, and not some nebulous, non-Christ-referenced Deist all-purpose Deity, and how much does the American government trust in God, anyway? (Where public schools conduct a war on Christmas, Thanksgiving, etc.; where city halls can’t permit nativity scenes at Christmas; where a monument to the Ten Commandments can’t be displayed any more in a courthouse; where law permits over a million abortions a year; etc. etc.)
Psalm 1, in my opinion, challenges the State to acknowledge God, the real God, of the Bible – “Kiss the Son; lest he be angry”… By explicitly ruling out acknowledging the God of the Bible as the reason for their authority – and, from my perspective, by rejecting His appointed servant George III (yes, I said it; the revolutionists rejected God’s ordained servant George III, and had to come up with theological justifications for doing so, which I find unconvincing, and reject in toto.), the American revolutionaries denied Christ His rightful place, as King of their land…
I know most Americans reading will disagree, as will Venezuelans and other patriots from countries that are republics, so we’ll have to agree to disagree; I accept that things are as they are, and have been for 200+ years; doesn’t mean I agree that they should have gone that way, but never mind…
Nothing wrong with “ritualized” prayers, IMO – the Lord’s Prayer is a ritualized prayer, and it comes straight from Scripture – so, too, worship involving singing the Psalms – that’s very ritualistic; as is ending with the Aaronic Benediction. What’s wrong with ritual?
I don’t give a fig how sincere and committed “Willow Creek”, “megachurch” Christians are; while sincerely, Godly. Bible-believing Christians, they are wrong in their approaches, and I’ll say it. I’ll criticize the Queen if I think she’s wrong in something, and have done so (not here, so far, perhaps, but privately in conversation with friends, and if something were to happen serious enough to warrant comment here, in the near future, I’d do so). Nevertheless, in the absence of more Godly alternatives (which England had in 1690, for example, and so I am grateful to God for His sending William of Orange to England in her hour of need), I support His servant the Queen, same as, if I lived in the time of Sampson, David or Solomon, and were one of God’s people then, I’d have supported my sinful, all-too-human leader, whom God placed in power, as He did the British Royal Family.
Flemish race
I have read in letters to editor section in newsweek magazine,flemish considers themselves only dutch people,emphasis by belgium in making flemish dialect a different language is considerated a trick to impose illegitimate suzeiranity from belgium crown,and AfricanCrisis.org a website from boer Jan Lamprecht says something similar. What is your opinion about it?.
They don’t consider themselves Dutch or want to join Holland
André writes,
“I have read in letters to editor section in newsweek magazine that the flemish consider themselves only dutch people”
(First, the rag known as Newsweek is an extreme radical leftist sheet without journalistic standards whatsoever which I’d as soon read as pre-1989 Pravda. Why any conservative person reads that filthy rag—or The New York Times, for that matter—is a mystery to me. Never count on finding truth there.)
The Flemish are different from the Dutch the same way the Walloons are different from their neighbors the northern French, the Yorkshiremen in England are different from the Essex English folk, the Friesians are different from the inhabitants of Maastricht at the other end of Holland, the Virginians are different from the Vermonters, the English, composed mainly of Anglo-Saxons, Celts, Scandinavians, and Norman French, are different from Scandinavians let’s say, the people of Thuringia are different from the people of the Black Forest, and, no doubt, the Venezuelans, André, are different from the Colombians. Every group is different. (The blind, and also certain dishonest self-interested connivers—such as Wall Streeters, Communists, or ethnic groups hoping to eliminate ethnic rivals they’re afraid of or merely sick-and-tired of or both, while working to preserve themselves intact of course—may all claim not to see this.) The Flemish are not the same as the Dutch. They are Catholic, for one thing, while the Dutch are Protestant, and that’s very important to them. They are not subjects of the monarch of the Dutch but of their own monarch whom they share with their fellow subjects the Walloons and the Eastern Belgian Germans, and that’s very important to them: people living in republics may not realize the importance for those living in monarchies of which monarch or royal family they are subjects of. (I, for one, would be proud to be a subject of King Baldwin but would feel uncomfortable as a subject of Baldwin’s little brother Albert who now reigns—and I’m an American. Think how people born into that system feel. The Flemish do NOT consider themselves subjects of the Dutch monarch. When I lived in Europe in the 70s Queen Elizabeth, officially Elizabeth II, visited some town in Scotland in an official capacity. A bomb went off there, planted by Scots specifically to say, according to the message they left, that she might be Elizabeth II of England but was Elizabeth I of Scotland. By the way, events like that give me hope for the future.) The Flemish have an extremely rich and distinctive cultural past consisting of writers, composers, and especially painters, and that’s very important to them. They have a political history different from the Dutch history. Their written language, yes, is Dutch, the same as is written officially in Holland. But their spoken language consists of an exceedingly rich array of dialects truly wonderful to hear, stretching the length and breadth of their country, none of which is the same as any dialect spoken in Holland. One must understand certain things about the old world, such as how beloved ancient pieces of identity like language are preserved. A man from the eastern part of Flanders and his fiancée from a Flemish village on the North Sea may not be able understand each other’s version of Flemish but may need to speak to each other in standard Dutch, which neither speaks in the home town but each has learned in school.
You can travel across the country of Flanders asking people in every city, town, and village if they want to join Holland and not find a single one who won’t gravely shake his head “No.”
Flemish nothing but Dutch? No. They are their own very distinct nation. They are not going to join Holland.
“emphasis by belgium in making flemish dialect a different language is considerated a trick to impose illegitimate suzeiranity from belgium crown,and AfricanCrisis.org a website from boer Jan Lamprecht says something similar. What is your opinion about it?
I’m not sure what you mean here, André. I did look at the web-site you give, without finding mention of it. Can you explain it again? Efforts by Brussels to eliminate the different Flemish dialects by encouraging only the official Netherlands dialect, if that’s what you mean, wouldn’t appear to lead to the strengthening of the crown’s suzerainty over Flanders—but I’m not up on the latest Brussels thinking (or utter lack thereof, more likely …) on this topic.
________________________
“If a tree falls and an expert doesn’t hear it, is there a sound?” Yes, the sweetest, most melodious sound in all creation: the sound of entropy being brought clanking, screeching, grinding to a halt.
not too surprising…
… I guess my faint hope (in my last post in this thread) was just that, but I understand; even the Moldovans want nothing to do with Romania, the Austrians see themselves as quite distinct from the Germans, and so on. (The Acadians, in Canada, see themselves as quite different from the Quebecois, and the “brayons” of Madawaska, New Brunswick, see themselves as not really Acadians, though they are descended from them…)
A couple comments:
1. Beco
A couple comments:
1. Becoming a Christian isn’t like becoming a Muslim or (Orthodox) Jew. There’s not a single Christian nation with the same laws, habits, customs, etc.
2. You can’t impose your truth on others, but you can present what you see as true. If the other accepts it because he also sees it as true then you haven’t destroyed his identity, you’ve helped him achieve it better.
3. To the extent Christianity as it actually exists leaves out something good and true I don’t think it will succeed in converting everybody in any event.
I do think that some Catholics think of Catholicism as something like nationality or ethnicity rather than something that converts nationality, ethnicity and the like while preserving them. So if they think American life as it stands is unsatisfactory their solution is to import some other nationality, Mexicans or whatever, who they think are more Catholic. I find that point of view deeply anti-Christian. The point is that Catholic Christianity would make Americans more truly what they are and bring out what is best in them.
Rem tene, verba sequentur.
Religion trumps race
“I do think that some Catholics think of Catholicism as something like nationality or ethnicity …”
I think I see your point, but it should be acknowledged that Catholicism *is* something like nationality or ethnicity: i.e., it is a family. Furthermore, it is a family that transcends other kinds of families and, indeed, takes precedence over them in many ways.
” … rather than something that converts nationality, ethnicity and the like while preserving them.”
Catholicism does convert nationality and ethnicity, but it does not necessarily preserve them or keep them from changing. It sees nothing wrong with their preservation, of course, so long as a right order of things is observed.
“So if they think American life as it stands is unsatisfactory their solution is to import some other nationality, Mexicans or whatever, who they think are more Catholic.”
And conversely, there are those who think American life is unsatisfactory not because it isn’t Catholic enough, but because it isn’t white enough, and their solution is to “repatriate” those immigrants that are insufficiently white. How you diagnose the problem has a lot to do with how you see immigration.
“The point is that Catholic Christianity would make Americans more truly what they are and bring out what is best in them.”
No argument there. And if immigration helps bring Catholic Christianity to Americans, what is anti-Christian about that?
Catholicism isn’t on the same
Catholicism isn’t on the same plane as nationality or ethnicity. To be a Jew is to be a member of one particular ethnic people. To be a Muslim is to be a member of a universal nation that cancels all other nationality. To be Catholic isn’t like that.
Catholicism does not leave ethnicity just as it was, any more than it leaves personality just as it was. It sets each in a larger setting but doesn’t wipe out either and views each as a good. Support for that view in the case of ethnicity can be found for example in the current Pope’s comments on the importance of cultures. To say something is a good is not of course to say it is the one ultimate good that trumps all others. I haven’t the faintest idea why in reason Mr. Culbreath should feel compelled repeatedly to argue against that view.
Nor do I understand why immigration on any large scale would help bring Catholicism to Americans. There are already scores of millions of Catholics here who can present the faith. When Saint Paul tried to bring Christianity to one place or another his strategy was not to organize a resettlement campaign to populate the place with people who were already Christian. He made his pitch to those who were there already. That’s been the approach of evangelists and missionaries generally.
Rem tene, verba sequentur.
“Catholicism isn’t on the sam
“Catholicism isn’t on the same plane as nationality or ethnicity. To be a Jew is to be a member of one particular ethnic people. To be a Muslim is to be a member of a universal nation that cancels all other nationality. To be Catholic isn’t like that.”
Right, Catholicism doesn’t cancel out nationality.
“To say something is a good is not of course to say it is the one ultimate good that trumps all others. I haven’t the faintest idea why in reason Mr. Culbreath should feel compelled repeatedly to argue against that view.”
The reason Mr. Culbreath feels compelled to repeatedly argue the point is that there are commenters here who, in his opinion, repeatedly give race a significance and importance that it does not merit. Such as the recent example of a commenter saying that some races should not be Christian.
You will notice that race is the only thing I ever talk about around here. That’s because I agree with (or can at least accept as legitimate) almost everything else that is said.
“Nor do I understand why immigration on any large scale would help bring Catholicism to Americans.”
That is not hard to understand at all. Immigrants brought Catholicism to me, a native-born Protestant, for instance. The idea that immigration can influence a culture should be a familiar theme to readers of Turnabout/VFR.
“There are already scores of millions of Catholics here who can present the faith.”
If they could, one presumes they would. But they don’t. That’s because 80% of America’s “scores of millions” of Catholics need evangelization themselves.
“When Saint Paul tried to bring Christianity to one place or another his strategy was not to organize a resettlement campaign to populate the place with people who were already Christian. He made his pitch to those who were there already. That’s been the approach of evangelists and missionaries generally.”
I think we also have the example of European colonization which Christianized the New World. Both are workable approaches.
As I’ve said before, I’m an immigration restrictionist and would like to see a sharp reduction in immigration until America gets her own house in order. But if there is going to be immigration, let most of it be Catholic.
Quasi-reformers
Mr. Culberth’s agreements on other issues are appreciated as well as his disagreements on race. I agree immigrating Catholics is a tool. It does seem we differ on the value of race.
Some say they want reform in the way they want a front door. They want the door to keep out the elements and thieves and a lot of people but not people of any particular race, that is, unless they agree with racially profiling criminals. (Before the so-called civil rights dictates of the Supreme Court, which quasi-reformers consider justice, and mass immigration, people in many neighborhoods could sleep with their front doors open on cool evenings.) Race is said to be important but only if one does nothing to keep it important.
Reformers, however, want the door to function as a device to exclude whomever they choose no matter (or almost no matter) what the basis. Our instinct to recognize an outsider is a basic instinct and can only be suppressed through the tyranny of a Supreme Court. The quasi-reformer actually has and uses the same basic instinct just not in regards to race. The quasi-reformer wants to use a door as a device to exclude (or mabe to lock up) a person of a particular race who wants to do something to retain the integrity of his family’s race or races. The quasi-reformer says he does not want one race but works to prevent others from ensuring there is more than one race.
To be fair, I don’t actually know whether Mr. Culbreth is the quasi-reformer I describe, and it is probably true Mr. Culbreth also thinks the Supreme Court went too far (but not as far as I think it went).
Some people are interested in race; others aren’t. That’s fine.
“The reason Mr. Culbreath feels compelled to repeatedly argue the point is that there are commenters here who, in his opinion, repeatedly give race a significance and importance that it does not merit. Such as the recent example of a commenter saying that some races should not be Christian.” (—Jeff Culbreath)
I didn’t say some races should not be Christian. (And in what I said on that topic, by the way, I wasn’t talking about race at all.) I said other cultures and religions both enrich the world by their existence and have the right to continue in existence and it seemed wrong to me to convert them to Christianity. I love the world the way it is. I love the Moslem culture, I love the Chinese culture, I love the Vietnamese culture, I love the Japanese culture, I love the Jewish-Israeli culture, I love the Hindu culture, and so on. I would hate to see any of these go out of existence or weaken. Most of all, I love the Christian culture—my own. But I want all the others to stick around because they are what make up the world—aren’t they? It’s an unbelievably beautiful world—all of it, not just Christianity—though Christianity, for me, is by far the most beautiful of all.
I’ve realized that Mr. Culbreath simply is not interested in race or races as such. That’s fine, and as a result I won’t ask him again about questions having to do with race.
I happen to have been a “green” ever since high school, in full sympathy with what many here would perhaps consider strongly pro-environmental policies (though I utterly reject what we all know as the extremist wacko green Marxist fringe and their shenanigans). I love driving through beautiful countryside looking at landscapes, trees, woods, fields, hills, rivers, farmland—you get the picture—I really, really love it. Once I was in a car riding through some really beautiful countryside and was amazed to learn my good friend sitting next to me was completely indifferent to it. He tried to drive home the point for me by looking around in the car, pointing to the inside of the car door next to us, and saying, “You see the inside of this car door? Well, looking at your beautiful countryside out the window gives me the same amount of pleasure, no more and no less, as looking at the inside of this car door.”
Some things that may interest us simply don’t interest others. Race is one such. I find races interesting. Mr. Culbreath doesn’t. I think that may be all that’s going on here.
Just as my friend in that story wouldn’t be the proper one to ask about environmental or “green” issues, about which he cared nothing, Mr. Culbreath may not, I now realize, be the proper one to ask about race, about which he cares nothing, or seems not to. I won’t ask him again.
________________________
“If a tree falls and an expert doesn’t hear it, is there a sound?” Yes, the sweetest, most melodious sound in all creation: the sound of entropy being brought clanking, screeching, grinding to a halt.
Religion Trumps Race?
I wonder if the idea that religion trumps race makes sense. Religion for example is the belief Jesus is the Savior. The believer and the nonbeliever each have a race. So the belief Jesus is the Savior is more important than the actual believer and nonbeliever?
“I wonder if the idea that re
“I wonder if the idea that religion trumps race makes sense. Religion for example is the belief Jesus is the Savior. The believer and the nonbeliever each have a race. So the belief Jesus is the Savior is more important than the actual believer and nonbeliever?”
What I mean is that the most significant and important thing about a person’s identity is his religion, not his race.
What beco means?
And about catholicism and ethnical identity,I think this constitutes problem with christian arabs,they are more interested in secular things than in religion,it affects situation in midle east.