Homegrown Immigrants

Meritocracy; few words gall the liberal mind more. Meritocracy is the lynchpin that keeps the wheel of capitalism rolling and this more than anything places liberalism eternally at odds with a meritorious outlook.

It is difficult to isolate social “victims” if you introduce the idea that they can advance according to their own energies. You cannot remain a victim in a meritorious society unless one gives up—then you are a quitter and not a victim.

Quitters feel much better about themselves when they are able to blame others, or circumstances for their failures, this makes them easily manipulated and exploited by oligarchies. What you therefore find is a warped idea of the nature of hope being fostered in leftist philosophy.

Merit as it pertains to human interaction is a decidedly Biblical concept, this is the reason you only find true freedom in nations that at least at one time or another embraced Christianity. The idea one should be rewarded for hard work is intrinsic to capitalism, and it is taught with regularity throughout the Holy Bible.

Christ Himself taught: “¶Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field; the which when a man hath found, he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field. ¶Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man, seeking goodly pearls: Who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it. ¶Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a net, that was cast into the sea, and gathered of every kind:

Which, when it was full, they drew to shore, and sat down, and gathered the good into vessels, but cast the bad away.” Matthew 13:44-48

Christ begins each parable with “Again” to drive the point He is making home, He really wants us to get this. There are no fewer than twenty parables from Christ in the gospels alone dealing with work and wages, this does not include such lessons which may be found in the Old testament on the same principle, God seems very bullish on merit. You will also always find the element of sacrifice in all of the Biblical teaching on doing works deserving of meritorious recognition.

Make no mistake, one cannot earn ones own salvation, the “Hope” preached in the Holy Bible is completely detached from the world—we as Christians are not taught to ever put our hope in the character of men and their ability to do “good” or grant rights. The Founders of our nation understood this full well, and it was because of this basic truth they codified the fact that rights are unalienable and granted not by men but the universal Creator of men.

Hope in the Holy Bible is always attached to God not man, wealth, or politics, whether it be for salvation or earthly comfort: “Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be not highminded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy;” I Timothy 6:17 It is our job while on earth to conduct ourselves in a way that is positive, industrious and sensible.

For the liberal leftist and the oligarch, this is anathema; they must be seen as the benevolent source of blessings—they must then always ensure a healthy supply of people willing to look to them to provide those blessings, the liberal left feeds on this.

We have been afforded a keen example of how the left cultivates, how they nurture the circumstances that perpetuate a steady supply of people looking to them for hope, in the unlikely form of Rachel Jeantel, the young woman at the center of the trial now being heard against George Zimmerman, who stands accused of murdering Trayvon Martin.

I am not taking a stand as to whether or not Zimmerman is guilty or innocent, nor am I taking a position on the character of Trayvon Martin, which may have played a roll in his untimely demise. This is instead a look at the ideology that makes it possible for far too many minority youths finding themselves in bad situations.

The tools most often used by leftist to cultivate their crop of perpetual victims are acquiescence and a fatalistic belief that one should be resigned to things being what they are. They teach that because of institutionalized racism, Black youth will always be looked down upon. So why not embrace what you are even if you have self-destructive qualities?

This is at the very core of multiculturalism, as long as you instill the idea it is not necessary to assimilate in a culture to survive, you will always have a core of people who will never thrive in a society which depends on certain norms being observed in order to climb socially. One of those norms is the ability to communicate effectively, ergo the ability to speak, read and write colloquial English in America is an important thing. So are good manners and vigilance regarding the company one keeps.

That is off course unless you have a talent that precludes you having to make a living via conventional means, such as rap music artist. Then you can conduct yourselves any way you wish, as long as what you create is commercially viable amongst a certain segment of society. It may be profitable, but then so is trafficking in drugs. Coarse behavior and language may indeed “Get you paid” that doesn’t mean it is good for society or even for the beneficiaries when the deal goes down with finality.

The left has written books on the idea that so-called “Black English” is culturally acceptable, coining scientific terms like Ebonics to lend credence to their guff. There was a time when Immigrants worked fiendishly hard to erase every vestige of broken English from their tongues and the language of their children.

This does not mean you forget your native language or culture, but rather you recognize there was a reason you left the old country to come to the new in the first place—That you are at a distinct disadvantage in the new if you cannot effectively communicate, failing to learn to do so is a hindrance to advancement. Not recognizing this is madness, to deny it’s relevance and to advance the very idea of Black English as a viable alternative to Standard English in America is nothing short of evil!

And yet we find just that being done regularly by the left:

I can’t help but remember a scene in the classic Sidney Poitier film, “To Sir With Love” where his cockney students found it remarkable that though “Sir” like them, had come from humble beginnings, he sounded so “Posh.” Sir explains: “When I was your age, I used a patois, a kind of simple English… The point is: if you’re prepared to work hard you can do almost anything. You can get any job you want. You can even change your speech if you want to.”

“Wanting to” is the key; the key to wanting to is motivation. The killer of motivation is excuse making and a lowering of standards. Where is the motivation to change going to come from when you hear on TV and from your leaders that you are fine just where you are and it’s the other guy’s problem if he can’t understand you or doesn't want to accept your mode of communication? This is how children think, not functioning adults.

All people like MSNBC host, Chris Hayes and so-called intellectuals like John McWhorter do with the kinds of analysis we see above, is sustain the idea in the minds of Black youth that they will always be looked down upon, that it is in fact useless to do things like improve your speech. Society is against them no matter what, so why bother?

In fact, the very idea of linguistic and behavioral assimilation becomes a negative in the Black community as anyone who grew up in a home with Black parents holding exacting ideas regarding proper manners, English and good diction can attest to. You will most surely be reminded on several occasions that you “Talk white” or “Act white” and may from time to time have to physically defend yourself for these perceived crimes against “Blackness.”

So what you have is a permanent “Homegrown Immigrant” class within our society, one that keeps itself in place through conditioning and an ever shrinking number of self aware people amongst them seeking to get out. This is exactly what the left wants, a truism confirmed by the constant castigation of anyone who suggests ideas like school vouchers.

Leaving children in failing school systems without choice and excuse making for Miss Jeantel’s poor language skills does her and the rest of our children a great disservice, it keeps them strangers in a their native land. It is also a part of a system that keeps the left furnished with a steady supply of Trayvons and Rachels empowered to stay blissfully ignorant and uninspired.

The rejection of meritocracy by the left is not merely a tool used to keep them relevant, and in positions of power, but it also speaks to an overall rejection of the primacy of God Himself and a rebellion against His tenets and right to judge us for our behavior. God taught so often about merit not just so we can live comfortably on earth, but to teach us that we are ultimately responsible for all the decisions we make, this includes what our reward will be come judgment day.

We will not be judged because He rejected us, but rather because we have rejected Him and the unmerited gift of grace He bestows on creatures that so often show our hatred towards Him when we spit on the sacrifice He made for us through His Son. Lets go back to Matthew 13 and see how Christ ends the parables on work and wages we began earlier, verses 49 & 50: “So shall it be at the end of the world: the angels shall come forth, and sever the wicked from among the just, And shall cast them into the furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.”

When we accept ideas in the Black community like “Black English” we are separating ourselves from society just as the wicked separate themselves when they reject the precepts of God and His sacrifice uswards. It is plain dealing rebellion for which only the rebel is responsible.

Digital Publius

The Truth About Comic Book Movies

I don’t care how many films about costumed heroes Hollywood regurgitates, the truth of the mater is Hollywood hates comic book superheroes and they have nothing but contempt for those of us who love them. Hollywood thinks comic book characters are silly. This is true because most people think they are silly, this is a fact those of us who don’t think they are silly have learned to live with.

Most people don’t read comic books, never have, never will. Most people look at Superman and ask, “Why can’t everyone see that Superman is just Clark Kent without the glasses?” So when a person who doesn’t really like Superman makes a Superman move, he makes sure to show that in the “real world “ Lois Lane would have no problem discovering Superman’s identity, getting the full story on her own with very little effort.

This may in fact be more realistic, but it sure isn’t any fun, that is unless your name happens to be Diogenes. I never picked up a superhero comic book expecting to find anything remotely related to the real world—that’s rather the point of superheroes. This should be OK, but it isn’t.

Hollywood reinforces the notion with every superhero film they make, that superheroes are intrinsically silly, so we will change them so they can be more readily accessible for a wider audience. I have no problem with this attitude, I would just prefer you apply it to your own creations.

If you think it’s absurd that Oliver Queen calls himself Green Arrow, then create your own urban crime-fighting archer and call him “The Hood” or the “Vigilante.” But if you are going to do Green Arrow do Green Arrow. You are after all counting on me as a fan of Green Arrow to watch the show. Green Arrow has been around as long as he has, because people like Green Arrow, not the Hood.

It is Hollywood’s way of trading on beloved character’s brands while denouncing the genre. No other industry allows their brands to be similarly misused. You can’t be a bottler in Detroit who decides to change the formula of Coca Cola because you think the general public will like your formula more and still put it in a Coke bottle.

Just as a person who buys a bottle of Coke expects Coke—A comic book fan wants to get the Mandarin he grew up reading about when he goes to see Iron Man 3 not an out of work drunken British actor with no powers. You see, Hollywood really thinks people go to see a superhero movie because they care who plays Iron Man.

That’s why they don’t put Jeremy Renner in a mask when he plays Hawkeye or they choose not to put a helmet on Thor. It’s why they continuously have heroes unmasked in every movie and why most of the time Iron Man has his mask flipped up so we know that Downey is playing Tony Stark. or we see his face inside the helmet constantly in the middle of every fight scene.

It’s not that Hollywood has a problem with asking movie patrons to suspend belief. We watch cars do things in the latest iteration of Fast and Furious that defy physics and the survivability of the person behind the wheel—They didn’t care if people thought it silly that Neo could learn Kung Fu by plugging him into a computer via a spiked USB cord that would destroy his brain stem and probably sever his spinal cord and there seems to be a lot of room between the mask and Tony Stark’s face.

No, the biggest problem Hollywood has with comic book superheroes is that they are not their own idea, so each director’s ego follows it’s own prime directive to leave a mark of their own on characters already fully fleshed out.

When you make Spiderman’s webbing organic and not a brilliant feat of chemistry combined with mechanical engineering, you downplay one of Peter Parkers most important characteristics, his incredible genius and wherewithal. It was that very genius that leads him to the science exhibition, which lead to his encounter with the radioactive spider in the first place.

But what guides the disdain for comic book superheroes in film and even in the contemporary comics themselves—is the concept of hope they represent. No character embodies hope and wholesome American idealism more than Superman so they had to darken him up.

Liberalism makes much ado about “hope”; they just can’t stand it in the framework of hope attached to a set morality. They particularly abhor the idea of hope tied to faith or patriotism—So Superman can no longer represent “Truth, Justice and the American Way,” but rather a nebulous ill defined hope unattached to any real philosophy…a sort of hope…ishness. Hollywood likes the idea of hope, just don’t tell them what hope is.

As a life long comic book purist, I loathe the overwhelming majority of the comic book based movies Hollywood produces. The audience for these films fall into two categories: Those of us who love superhero comic books and those of you who could not care less about comics or their history, you go because they are there.

The latter may manifest in a person just wanting to see the latest blockbuster, your boyfriend dragged you, or whatever motivates a person to see any other movie, maybe you like popcorn in the dark.

I am an unapologetic nerd! I never hid the fact that I loved comic books from girls or anyone else—I had friends who would shush me if we were talking comics and a girl walked up. Meanwhile I was never at a loss for attractive female companionship in my single days. It didn’t hurt that I was co-owner of three comic book stores back then, you see, we turned our obsession into a business, girls like that sort of thing.

Most of the filmgoers have no idea why these movies are bad in the purist’s view,  it is just a spectacle, lots of special effects and explosions… You don’t know that Batman would never give up being Batman because some villain made a threat as portrayed in Dark Knight. But I freely confess I find it perplexing that someone can claim to love the superheroes they grew up with while offering apologetics on behalf of filmmakers who utterly mutilate them.

Superheroes, invented during some of the darkest periods in America’s history, the Great Depression, World War Two... were created as an escape from reality featuring characters representing what was best in America, the ideal and the hope that whatever crisis we faced, ultimately good and the USA would eventually prevail. You didn’t become evil to vanquish evil—you overcame evil and you found a way to do it with honor. It may not have been realistic but it was good and it was inspiring. When did striving to reach an ideal become quant and old fashioned?

What are bloodthirsty characters like Wolverine and The Punisher with their gritty realism inspiring in our kids? When you saw the bad guy in the comics I grew up with being lead away in chains courtesy of “Your friendly neighborhood Spiderman.” Or a villain meeting his just desserts after falling victim to his own scheme, justice had been served and it reinforced the rule of law as a worthy notion.

We now live in a period where the ends justify the means. This is a very deadly state to be in when the “Ends” and what we seek to accomplish, are so poorly defined. So I reckon a Man of Steel who summarily snaps the neck of the bad guy is precisely what we should expect from a culture that thinks hope springs from pretty speeches and rhetoric, as opposed to immutable ideals and unalienable rights granted to all by a Creator. Now we look to privileges dolled out by flawed men.

The Disciples of Christ were falsely accused of lying to spread the gospel and the question was asked whether this was OK if it leads people to the truth of God? The answer was concise:

What if some were unfaithful? Will their unfaithfulness nullify God’s faithfulness? Not at all! Let God be true, and every human being a liar. As it is written:

“So that you may be proved right when you speak and prevail when you judge.”

But if our unrighteousness brings out God’s righteousness more clearly, what shall we say? That God is unjust in bringing his wrath on us? (I am using a human argument.) Certainly not! If that were so, how could God judge the world? Someone might argue, “If my falsehood enhances God’s truthfulness and so increases his glory, why am I still condemned as a sinner?” ⁸ Why not say—as some slanderously claim that we say—“Let us do evil that good may result”? Their condemnation is just! Romans 3:3-8

These are the values I would prefer my kids were exposed to, and that is the morality heroes like Superman used to represent, not the relativistic Bizarro world Superman of the new hope paradigm. Why is it suddenly wrong to hold up the ideal? Why does a guy with a red cape, an “S” on his chest who flies need to reflect the real world? That the question needs asking is what is truly absurd and breathtakingly sad.

Digital Publius
(Official First Appearance of "The Geek Who Sits On High")

Fatherhood, Fear or Largesse?

Originally posted Wednesday, July 29, 2009

My mother died when I was six years old. I don’t remember much about her in a physical sense, I remember she was pretty and she always smelled good. The way she made me feel is what I remember most strongly about my mother, I remember the warmth and love she exuded were almost palpable things, always compelling me to seek her side of my parent’s bed in the mornings so it would be the first thing I experienced everyday.

My father I had until I was twelve. I was very close to my dad, he had his failings like we all do, but he was what a father ought to be. He was filled with love for my older sister, and me. He was certainly the person I most wanted to hang around with when I was a boy. A boy could not have had a better fellow for bolstering the old self esteem than my dad, he would always brag in front of his friends and say things like; “Look at my son, he’s got arms like truck tires. But when he laid down the law...

My father was one of the most intimidating people who ever lived, he had piercing deep set eyes which seemed to glow with a red hot severity whenever he was upset or intensely serious about an issue. He wasn’t physically imposing, he wasn’t a large man, but he had a native potency that just seemed to give one pause in his presence. I saw men twice his size deferring to him and it always seemed they did so naturally.

It takes my older sister to tell some of the best stories about his effect on her dates. Even the most arrogant of her suitors withered under his gaze, enduring his scrutiny for what must have felt like an eternity before being granted permission to date my sister. On occasion, he would even arrange to be cleaning his M1 carbine when meeting a potential beau for the first time. I have a 30-06 in reserve for the same employment.

My dad didn’t have to repeat himself, when he told me to do something I did it. This was learned behavior, as I had suffered the consequences of having to be reminded to do something, the lesson learned in the seat of my pants stuck. But, being a boy, a boy with BB guns, a Ruttman mini bike, a love for explosives and an imagination fueled by comic books and a few too many trips to literary places like Barsoom and Pelucidar, I had quite a few lessons never repeated after the rod of correction.

Eventually you begin to count the cost, should I do this thing which may be fun while it lasts and suffer the inevitable wrath I’m sure to face, or should I seek more paternally approved diversions? If you are wise you opt for the latter. It is at this point your relationship with your dad begins to change, or at least it should.

Just about a year or so before my father's death, he stopped spanking me.

I wish I could say he stopped because I had ceased all the activities I had an affinity for warranting a heaping serving of “hot cakes”, I hadn’t. He told me I was old enough to know right from wrong, at this point, I began to obey my father not out of fear of the corporeal ramifications of my actions, (which I had begun to understand took an emotional toll on him to have to mete out) but out of the love he showed me every time he forgave me. You begin to recognize you both feel better when he is bragging on you and proud of you, than when he is punishing you.

I dialog with agnostics and atheists fairly often on a variety of subjects. When the opportunity to discuss morality arises with them I am fascinated by a recurring theme I have heard from more than one non-believer. The idea Biblical morality is predicated on the fear of displeasing the God of the Holy Bible, rather than what they believe to be the (self evident) natural desire to do good or to treat others well because it is what is best for society in a purely naturalistic sense.

It is true the Bible states without equivocation:

“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.” Proverbs 1:7

I agree with this statement, we should fear the Lord in my opinion. It goes on to say in verse 8 and 9:

“My son, hear the instruction of thy father, and forsake not the law of thy mother:  For they shall be an ornament of grace unto thy head, and chains about thy neck.”

Fear of the Lord is the beginning, not the end, the beginning of knowledge. This is why God structured the family the way He did, it is a type of the relationship we should seek to have with Him. A child should fear his father in the beginning, it is the fear of a good father in early life that forms the foundation for and is integral to learning the behavior that will stand the individual in good stead throughout life and is the plumb line proving an orderly society.

As you study the Bible you get to know the God of the Bible, He should be feared, but just like a healthy relationship with your father changes throughout life as you mature from one of fear to deep admiration, appreciation and love, so too does the portrait of the Biblical Father. We find Him making a provision through His Son to reconcile even the vilest of us to Him.

We see over and over again throughout scripture His deep desire to have and maintain a close and meaningful relationship with all of us. He promises when we accept His Son and His sacrifice, no matter how much we screw up, He will call us righteous. This is not a license to do wrong, but a promise not to reject His children, because He knows we can never measure up to His standards.

So, yes, after reading the Holy Bible in it’s totality and fully apprehending His teachings, I would have to say the God of the Holy Bible is wiser than me. His rules are better and far more complete than anything man left to his own devices has managed to come up with.

There is a plague of boys in this nation that grew up, or is growing up without the fear of a father because the father was not, or is not there to instill it.

Far more tragically those fathers are not there to lead their families to the heavenly Father who writes His laws on the hearts of believers. Subsequently we have prisons filled to the bursting with children who are following their (self evident) natural desires.

It is not a mistake we find in the media the father is so often portrayed as a buffoon or a brute, and liberalism and secularism does so much to downplay the importance of fatherhood in modern society.

Whether it be through the grim promotion of abortion on demand, absolving men from familial responsibility by removing the child from the world all together, the advocacy of gay marriage and blurring the rolls of men and women, or the creation of the welfare state making it unprofitable to have a father in the home, they are all eating away at the moral foundation undergirding America and they serve formidably as surrogate attacks against God himself!

So I ask my agnostic and atheistic friends this question: As we banish the Biblical, fearful God, our heavenly Father, more and more from the public square by removing the Ten Commandments from municipal buildings, or banning prayer in schools... As we edge ever closer to a secular America and the protean largesse of men, are we better off?

Digital Publius

Who Dares Call It Murder?

Just over a month ago, the nation celebrated the rescue of Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus, and Michelle Knight. These three young women endured a decade long captivity at the hands of a bestial man who mercilessly raped, beat, starved and humiliated them at his leasure.

Thankfully, this dispicable man will soon be made to suffer his own forced imprisonment as he pays for the indignities heaped upon his victims. Yesterday the reprobate was indicted on over 300 counts of rape, kidnapping and assault.

Interestingly enough, he is also being charged with two counts of aggravated murder. These charges stem from the criminal having beaten one of the girls who was with child so severely he forced her to miscarry. The man is being held accountable for the murders of his own unborn children.

As most things do, after reading the charges this man now faces I was reminded of the Words of God in the Holy Bible, Exodus 21:

22 ¶If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart from her, and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, according as the woman's husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine.

“No mischief,” if the child is delivered prematurely due to the harm that came to the mother, but the child is born alive and healthy—then the culprits are only accountable for the assault on the woman.

23 And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life,

If the child dies, it is the same penalty for murder meted out for a full-grown person—death—a life for a life. That God in the Holy Bible considers the unborn persons is obvious to anyone who has studied His Word. It ascribes personal attributes to the unborn Psalm 51:5, it uses personal pronouns when speaking of children in the womb and it assures us that God knows us personally whilst still in your mother’s body, Jeremiah 1:5.

However, this truth is best exemplified by the advent of our Lord into the world:

ҦNow the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost.

Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not willing to make her a publick example, was minded to put her away privily.

But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost.

And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins.” Matthew 1:18-22

If this tableau were played out in contemporary America, His mother would likely be counseled to terminate her inconvenient pregnancy discovered not long before her impending nuptials and Joseph ridiculed for standing for it. But it is clear that God is declaring Jesus is a child, a person at His very conception.

So it would seem the Cuyahoga County grand jury responsible for bringing charges against the allegedly murderous Cleveland kidnapper have taken a page out of the Holy Scriptures—perhaps unwittingly, but nevertheless…

What is most passing strange in my eyes though, is how it is murder when caused by an outside force—yet a question of “Women’s health” when the mother decides to do away with her child for convenience sake. It is not “Mischief” if the mother decides infanticide is more desirable than motherhood; it is “Choice.”

How wretched we must look to God these days in our society. Is it any wonder why so many of our children have turned to the barbarous behavior we see evidence of daily? Our nation subconsciously tells them constantly their existence is a matter of choice, subject to a mother’s caprice, rather than a blessing from God bestowed on a loving husband and wife.

All too often in today’s society children are not the result of God’s order regarding marriage but the result of a degenerate culture that has changed the beauty of sexual relations between committed, wedded husbands and wives to a recreational activity free of spiritual and temporal meaning beyond self gratification.

This is the sort of nation we have become. We have a President who asked God to bless Planned Parenthood, one of the leading enablers of Biblical “Mischief” on demand, responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of children each year. And a media that turns a blind eye towards the horrors perpetrated by a murderous doctor whose actions would cast a pall across a woman’s beloved right to choose death for her children in the womb.

All this while shedding tears for the victims of Sandy Hook, followed by base affectation, proposing useless laws they claim are designed to protect the innocent. Draconian empty laws to protect a few, while protecting laws that destroy the lives of millions, this is the modern American teradiddle, the pretentious lie that we can both care about innocent life and not care about innocent life as long as we can parse what life is and isn’t.

Yet the murder charges against the kidnapper of Cleveland show a kink in the liberal’s amoral armor. We as a society know in our hearts how inconsistent such indictments are in light of our free wheeling access to abortion on demand. Yet we have chosen darkness over the light, it is our nature. We continue to sacrifice the unborn to the god of forces so we are not “Punished” by the unwanted children conceived by our lusts.

Yet we pretend to care for the ones who are born, even as we teach them the meaninglessness of their existence by the way we live our lives and the laws we make. Our spirits war against our flesh and all too often the flesh wins—Again I am reminded of Scripture:

“And Elijah came unto all the people, and said, How long halt ye between two opinions? if the LORD be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him. And the people answered him not a word.” I Kings 18:21

Digital Publius