Observe & Retort

The video linked below has addressed a nagging, itching question that has been in the back of my mind for some time. I won't say that I'm convinced, but some interesting points have been made in it that I believe are worthy of discussion. Watch the clip, then read on. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFyIzoBwXVk There has always been, for me, great  parallels between the American and Roman Empires. Similar social movements arose in Rome in the first few centuries AD. Some of which can be observed by reading The Apostle Paul's letters to various churches, including the one in Rome. Instead of leading to a demise though, perhaps a reaction to this and the perceived degradation of moral fabric was to swing in opposition. Constantine united Rome under Christianity which is not only as a unifying ideology but one that also supported masculine rule and feminine subversion. In the years to follow the Roman Empire (Holy Roman Empire) would become increasingly conservative

In his article, The Sexual Revolution Turns Ugly  Stephen Baskerville links recent scandals of sexual misconduct with, consequentially, the Sexual Revolution. Please read this article here .  Here is my take. I see the logic in Baskerville's assertion that sexual liberation has given us an over-sexualized world, sex sells, and instead of viewing sex as something beautiful between two consenting adults it is instead too often regarded as a commodity, an outlet, a release, a mechanism of power, and yes even abuse or violence. But like the author of this article points out such behaviors now categorized as misconduct always existed, it was just called sin. The revolution was to liberate society from the Christian conventions that allegedly oppressed them, now a few decades later we look to put functionally similar though secular conventions. It makes me wonder, how many other traditional Judaeo-Christian conventions will society vilify as oppressive constructs only to later replace

"It's okay to be white" This phrase recently trolled many college campuses across America in the last week, sparking outrage from some leftist, identity-political czars. A youtuber, Sargon of Akkad effectively covers it here , so I don't want to re-hash the details here. What I would like to point out is that historically speaking white people have gotten a bad wrap, and that the mere fact that some felt the need to post this phrase on their campuses AND the subsequent outrage is indicative of a campaign (perhaps crusade) against the current ethnic majority in America. If all you had to go by was the mainstream narrative of history you would think that white Americans were the 'people' that invented slavery instead of being the people that abolished it. It was not African, Middle-Eastern, or Asian nations that first abolished slavery in all its forms. It was western peoples that pushed such ideas to the forefront of their respective cultures. Certainly there

First of all, to illustrate how one-sided our society has become, the word Masculinism is not even recognized as a word by most spell-checkers (MSFT, Google, etc.), meaning that it is not a word. In binary world of gender we have either the masculine or the feminine. Those that are activists for the rights of the feminine (i.e. biological women, do we really need to preface that with "biological"?) are called feminists and their movement is called feminism. Those that advocate for the rights of the masculine side of this binary are not called masculinists... yep not even a word, nor is masculinism. Do you know what are words? Misogynist, patriarchal, chauvinist, and of course bigot. Anyone who tries to represent the interests of men in general are insulted, attacked, smeared and even called 'racists', like that makes any god-damned sense. Doesn't matter if it makes sense so long as said persons are effectively silenced. Yep. And they call anyone politically right

September was a black-out month for blogging. Apologies. Now that October is here, let's get started... A bit more than a decade ago my family started attending a Christian Church on a regular basis. We had previously looked at a couple different churches but the fit was poor. What we found all too often that the message was to simply take things on faith and not to try and understand the deeper meaning if there didn't obviously appear to be one. That's just not how I roll. If all the evidence, logic, and reason point in the opposite direction of what I'm being told I'm going to question it. This new church embraced this thinking and exposed me to a 'higher' theology that lacked the dogmatic assertions of most Christian institutions (though still had some). This thinking is also how I approach just about everything else, including politics. When I look at conservative versus liberal stances on the variety of subjects that separate the two wings I apply l

Listing to a news report this morning a journalist asserted something about the "Far Right" that struck me as odd. The assertion was that the racists groups we know as Neo-Nazi's and the KKK were part of the political right, specifically those on the far right end of the political spectrum, the extreme conservatives. After thinking about it for a moment I began to wonder how 'left' or 'right' such fringe groups actually are. Is Antifa actually left or liberal? Is the Alt-Right actually conservative? There is also the statement or idea that can be paraphrased as; the far-right is not racist but most racists are far right. Is that accurate? I think that we can say with some degree of confidence that people that tend to hold some measure of ethnic bigotry associate with conservative principles when it comes to things like marriage equality and illegal immigration, as do the extreme people (KKK, etc.) that want to do something about it, but the political righ

So it's been nearly a week (as of this draft) since the mess in Charolettesville VA. As a person who applies the scientific method in his work I like facts, so let's try and point out a few. Of those protesting the removal of the Confederate statue and the renaming of Lee Park to something else there were: 28% Southern Nationalists 19% White Nationalists 19% Alt Right 19% ProudBoys and AltKnights 17% Militia and Oathkeepers (Constitutionalists) Let's see, 28+19(3)+17 = 102%... somebody's rounding up, so much for facts but we can get a glimpse of the make-up of these people. There doesn't seem to be much difference between the Alt Right and the White Nationalists, but I've never read anything racist about the Oathkeepers. What I'm wondering is where are the Neo-Nazi's and the KKK in this? Clearly we saw some? These numbers come from the FB page of one of the organizers so we can put its objectivity into question. Facts become less concrete. Let&

rep·a·ra·tion ˌrepəˈrāSH(ə) noun the making of amends for a wrong one has done, by paying money to or otherwise helping those who have been wronged. Apparently there is a new movement with the end goal of getting reparations paid by the U.S. government to African Americans for the slavery that ended 152 years ago. Yes this is real. Where do I start? It's Divisive  Let's start with the divisive nature of this "movement". By proposing such an idea one is in fact asserting that African-Americans are in fact separate from the rest of America. This is in direct opposition to the efforts of liberal people/politics since the 1960's (the last 50-55 years) for ethnic equality based on the idea that we are all simply Americans and we are all equal. There is a hypocrisy inherent in this thinking, you cannot have it both ways. How effective will this be? The claim is that black Americans are impoverished still because of the trauma slavery has caused them, and

Terrorism noun: the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims. James Alex Fields Jr. chose to drive his car into other vehicles and civilians. What is available so far is that the guy was most likely associated with a white supremacist group, or a sympathizer of one since the victims were folks protesting the presence of Alt-Right, Neo-Nazi's and KKK members in Charolettesville. The man had a history of violence at least with regard to his mother whom had called the police on more than one occasion because her son had gone off his meds and been violent and threatening around her. Oh, wait, his "meds"? So we are not talking about a mentally healthy person, right? Let's just assume that he was on his meds and decided that his White Nationalist Party demonstration getting cancelled by the local government and state troopers because of their fear of violent anti-protests triggered the emotional outrage tha

Occasionally I read an article that just resonates with me and some of the thoughts I've been having regarding our Western society. Typically I link to them and comment on parts, this whole article is a great read, please check it out  HERE Favorite quotes: "In this age where every bit of information is at our fingertips, it seems we've never been so ignorant; as if the omnipresence of information has inoculated us against wisdom. " "So many today don't speak of truth, they speak of "my truth."  But when everyone has their own truth, there is no wisdom.  They don't even speak about religion, they call it "spirituality" which is simply like a GPS which tells you you're always exactly where you're supposed to be, which, to me, doesn't seem like much help.  And the only surviving "sin" is believing that sin exists at all."

The assertion that if there are less guns there will be less gun violence seems like a logical conclusion right? In the realm of science people may draw conclusions without data that seem reasonable but then the scientist will go out and test that theory. So I wanted to do the same. Below is what I discovered. The correlation between gun ownership and gun violence is inverse. Gun Ownership stats 46% of U.S. households reported owning guns, may have been some under reporting so might be in the 50's There are over 320 million guns in the U.S. 36% of which are handguns Ownership rose enormously from the 1960s to 2010 Fewer than 100,000 guns are used in violent crimes yearly, or 0.03125% of guns in American are used in violent crimes yearly Ownership is highest where gun violence is lowest. Whites own more guns than Blacks, but there is statistically more gun violence among blacks Middle-aged  own more guns than  Young, But there is statistically more gun violence amo