Essays in Idleness

The world turns, or rather, it rotates, which is a less dramatic thing than, say, an iceberg flipping over. Even less dramatically, the ice freezes, or melts away; or there is the spectacle of the livid paint of our rhetoric, gradually drying. Most of what can be seen in our “environment” is undramatic; the rest cannot be seen. It is a blank rhetorical colouring book, for our verbs and adjectives.

As today is the sixth, my rhetoric will be on Donald Trump. Readers through the years since he became the news have easily misjudged my views on him. I am against politics, by disposition, and as Trump’s disposition is against that part of politics I am most against, I often seem to be among his fans. But I am not, because he is not reliable.

The 6th of January 2021 was, as all intelligent observers have had time to discern, a “set-up.” It was a fairly peaceful demonstration by some Republicans which some Democrats used to distract from having twisted the election. Progressive media routinely spun or suppressed information favourable to Mr Trump, who nevertheless received what would have been a record number of votes. But his lazy and undistinguished opponent scored more votes still, against known statistical principles, and won all the tight races by results which changed overnight. But the fraudulent effects made possible by mail-in voting and machine tabulation were dwarfed by the effect of a smearing campaign of lies in the progressive media.

Let’s say, I don’t like Trump because of the way he handled the Batflu. He accepted false claims by the World Health Organization, and the American public health bureaucracies aligned with it; he gave power to Anthony Fauci and others like him; he let Americans be exploited for the profit of Big Pharma; and he failed to launch investigations that could have quickly exposed the truth about the “Covid pandemic.” Most outrageously, Trump allowed the lockdowns to proceed.

So how could I like him? … Other than for his style, which is an affront to progressives.

I wouldn’t have voted for Hitler, in that season of disgrace, ninety years ago, but then, I wouldn’t have voted for the “social democrats,” either, or for Thälmann, the Communist. I think I would just have thrown my vote away on Heinrich Held, the Catholic Bavarian. More likely, I wouldn’t vote. In this way, in the German Reich, 5th of March 1933, I would have reduced my influence over the national destiny, from one in forty million votes for the moment, to zero, tops.

Trump is entirely unlike Hitler, by the way. He is loud and vulgar, but quick, and he has an agreeable sense of humour. He is also entirely unlike Herr Held, but I might vote for him anyway. This would be for the personal satisfaction of annoying leftish people. But so far as I can see, the Democrats will win the election, regardless of the way that people vote.

It is a modern progressive notion that “civilians” should not be “targeted” by the military or police, when clearing riots or terrorist nests.

Gaza may serve as an example, along with the “West Bank” and southern Lebanon, where active, murderous “Palestinians” enjoy the support of approximately the whole population. Polls show that overwhelming majorities in all these places approve what was done by the armed “Palestinians” on October 7th, and say it should be done again and again. But a more useful distinction would be the specifically technical one, between those who are using weapons (including rock-throwers), and those not using weapons, at the moment. We needn’t shoot members of the latter group; let them self-pacify.

By a more liberal policy on shooting the former, however, we might save lives. For once the general population of “Palestinians” comes to realize that we are no longer “just kidding,” mothers might instruct their children more carefully. Adult perpetrators of violent acts would no longer have to wonder about their chance of survival (for it would shrink to nil), thus reducing everyone’s anxieties.

The same approach should be taken throughout the West, and indeed in Toronto, where a Jewish delicatessen was firebombed, penultimate night. (Our intrepid cops, reading the graffitoes scrawled on the premises, suspect that there was “hate motivation.”)

Complacency may be found in the German mainstream press, reporting the number of arrests during New Year celebrations in Germany. This declined by 10 percent from the previous year. And while many dozen policemen were, as usual, injured, their injuries were “minor” — i.e. none were killed. The reader must then dig through the “hard right” Internet to learn what happened, and where, in the course of that evening. For Europe was put on fire.

The number, for instance, of cars that were torched, in the hundreds around Paris, Brussels, Antwerp, &c, increased, together with the number of stabbings on the street, and desecrations of many other kinds; but we should look to the future. A perfectly robust response to the rioters would, for instance, reduce the need for arrests by 100 percent.

It would also turn the tide on Islamism, and Woke Leftism. For Islamophobia — “the fear of Muslims” — is only half of what is required. It is the passive part. We need a more active strategy against Islam and the Left.

Progressive notions are unsound. They don’t “communicate.”

While freedom of speech, and the freedom of peaceful association, are recognized in law, neither resembles a licence to intimidate. The authorities should not be shy when making this distinction. Let them be bold in making it understood. Their message should be: “Live and let live, or we’ll kill you.”

Lift up your hearts, the priests have been saying in the Anaphora, or “carrying up” of the offering, in the Apostolic tradition of countless centuries.  The spirit of the Eucharist — the Sacrifice of the Mass — is the opposite of depressing. In the account of Abraham binding Isaac, and the instruction from Elohim for his release, there is something not merely optimistic, nor libertarian. Verily, we go beyond that.

Abraham, according to the Jewish rabbis, knew perfectly well that God does not command human sacrifice. This “Judeo-Christian” God is not the God of the Aztecs, or the God of Muslim terrorists, and in this tale, He conveys the extraordinary information to the humans. In the story of Christ, He explains this once again. We are to be “lifted up” as Isaac was lifted, and as Christ was lifted, in the Resurrection.

But outside the Mass, human sacrifice continues. It is what the humans do, when they revert to their animal condition. They are wild, and dangerous.