Trump and the Khan Controversy

Vincent J. Curtis

31 July 2016

At an especially low point in the Democrat convention, the Hillary campaign put up Mr. Khizr Khan and his wife to accuse Donald Trump over the death of their son, Captain Humayum Khan, killed by an IED in Iraq in 2004.

The emotional Mr. Khan accused Trump of not sacrificing anything for America and of not having read the United States constitution.  The highly emotional spectacle was an off-set of the appearance at the Republican convention of the mother of Sean Smith, killed at Benghazi, and to whom Hillary lied about a video being responsible.

Trump, of course, had absolutely nothing to do with the death of Captain Khan in Iraq in 2004, as he was not even in politics at the time to vote for or against the war.  The visual impression of Mr. and Mrs. Khan on stage was to implicitly accuse Trump of somehow being bad as a result their son’s death.  Their appearance may have been overtly intended to attack Trump for his policy of halting Muslim immigration – all immigration in fact – from countries that have a history of committing terrorist acts against America and America’s allies.

It is a particularly vicious practice of rhetoric to employ the extreme suffering of someone against the candidacy of another.  The suffering person is often given a moral pass on account of their grief, and are not held responsible for what they say, since these are only expressions of their grief.

But that does not give the suffering the right to say anything, or to have what they say go without being countered.

The reference to what has Trump sacrificed for the benefit of America is just as easily turned upon Hillary and Bill Clinton.  That pair have not sacrificed anything either upon the account of Mr. Khan.

The reference to the constitution concerns Article VI, which holds that there can be no religious test for the holding of public office in the United States.  As a lawyer, Mr. Khan ought to know that banning a religious test for office holding in the United States is not a ban on religious tests for immigration.  And the freedom of religion protected under the First Amendment applies to American citizens and to people resident in the United States, not to foreigners wishing to immigrate to the United States because the constitution does not have extra-territorial application to foreigners.

Mr. Khan may hold great animosity towards Trump because Trump appears hostile to Islam, but upon examination Mr. Khan’s argument against Trump’s candidacy falls to the ground.

It is also indisputable that if Trump’s ban on Muslim immigration had prevented the Khans from migrating to the United States decades ago, his son would not have been killed.  His son would not have been able to join the US military, and would not have been deployed to Iraq.  Therefore, he would not have been killed in Iraq by an IED.

The Democrats and the media are laboring mightily to discredit Trump.  With Khan, they presented him with outrageous accusations that seem to say that Trump shouldn’t be president because he hurt the feelings of this family whose Muslim son was killed in Iraq, one of 4,000 others over the course of that war.  Never mind that Hillary voted for the war that killed their son because she wanted the creds as a hawk and to look tough.  And if it wasn’t the Khan affair, it was the discrediting accusation that the Russians favored Trump because of the release of the 19,000 DNC emails that showed the fix was in for Hillary.  And if it wasn’t that the Russians favored Trump, it was that Trump was treasonous for asking the Russians to release the 33,000 of Hillary’s missing “private” emails that the FBI couldn’t recover because Hillary destroyed the contents of her private server before she handed it over to the FBI.

The question as the campaign progresses will be to what extent the undecided of the electorate are moved by these low blows at Trump.  Trump is able to return low blow for low blow, a feature previously unknown in Republican presidential candidates and on which the Clintons thought they owned the patent.  The novelty of this is refreshing to some and appalling to many old-line Republicans who grew up in a world of extreme enforcement of political correctness against Republicans.  Like adults beaten as children, they can’t get over what indiscipline Trump is able to get away with.

-30-

Hillary’s Speech

Vincent J. Curtis

30 July 2016

Unlike her speeches to Goldman Sachs, Hillary released the full text of her acceptance speech at the Democrat National Convention.  The speech contained the expected themes of sentimentality for her family, attacks on her opponent, a sampling of her program, and a peroration of patriotism.

Whenever you’re dealing with a Clinton you need to check carefully for the lawyerly sophistries being employed.  These aren’t exactly lies, they are suggestio falsi  and suppressio veri.  These are Latin legal expressions translating as false suggestion and suppression of the truth.  Another technique a Clinton uses is to constantly change the assumed frame of reference in the course of making a sequence of expressions.  When the unstated and unexamined principles, or frame of reference, behind the sequence of expressions are compared, the expressions add up to nothing, because it all depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.

I don’t propose to examine Hillary’s speech in detail, for that would be a waste of time.  However, a fast overview of the obvious false suggestions and suppression of the truth that occurred in her speech is merited, if only for the record.

Entering the main body of her speech, Hillary called for unity.  “We are stronger together,” or some such insipid trope offered with the air of insightfulness.  It was unclear whether by being stronger together she meant the Democrat party for the political struggle ahead, or of the country as a whole.  That part was left ambiguous.  However, she then proceeded to dump buckets of manure over the head of Donald Trump.  She is also recently on record as being proud that Republicans are her enemy.  Not ISIS, not enemies of the United States, not the forces against law and order, but her civilized political opponents and co-countrymen she declares are her enemies.

So much for national political unity.  You can’t draw flies with vinegar.  This extreme partisanship she let loose here is of a piece with her whole political career.  She is where she is, and she is the hated and loved Hillary Clinton because she has been this extreme partisan for her entire career.

The United States cannot unify behind Hillary Clinton because of her poisonous hatred of her enemies, i.e. Republicans and those of the political “right.”  However, the extreme partisans of the Democratic party (though not those of the diffuse far-left, i.e. the Bernie Sanders supporters) can unify behind Hillary, if they can stand the stench of corruption that emanates from her and her family.

Her call for unity within the Democrat party was made to Bernie Sanders supporters who discovered that Hillary had been aided in her campaign by corrupt dealings of the Democrat party apparatus, which resulted in the resignation of the head of the DNC on the eve of the convention.  (That head, Debby Wasserman-Schultz was promptly hired by the Clinton campaign!  Loyalty gets rewarded by the Clintons.)  It takes a strong stomach to be a Democrat these days, but most will manage it.  Some of the Sanders supporters may not, and either vote Green party or stay home.

The next major theme was to recall her long career of social activism as proof of her concern for the little guy, and her merit to be their champion as president.  (note: The being a champion business is a rip-off of the Trump campaign.)

Hillary is a disciple of Saul D. Alinsky.  Alinsky was faced with the corrupt, machine politics of the city of Chicago from the 1930s into the regime of Mayor Richard Daly in the 1960s.  Alinsky was a champion of the “Back of the Yards” neighborhood, and got the corrupt city political machine to undertake ward healing for his neighborhood by undemocratic means that tended to undermine the smooth running of the city.  Since order was the justification for the machine politics of Chicago, Alinsky’s clever tactics served as the squeak that got the wheel grease for his neighborhood.

Thus Hillary’s view of government is of a cow to be milked for the benefit of those she is champion of.  Her calls for free stuff for the middle class of this kind.  It is going to be taken from the cow, consisting of Wall Street, big Corporations, and the super-Rich, who are finally going to made to pay their fair share of taxes.  (What their "fair share" amounted to was supposed to have been decided during the first term of the Obama Administration, but times change.)

All for the benefit of the middle class, who are portrayed as victims.  Never mind that when the system comes crashing down, it is the middle class who will suffer the worst because the Rich have the means to look after themselves withal, and the real poor have nothing to lose.

She said she is going to empower Americans to live better lives.  In the American constitutional order, the role of government is to promote the general welfare and otherwise leave the people free to pursue happiness in their own way.  It is an error peculiar to the left that this arrangement is perverted into the government playing a role in the individual’s pursuit of happiness under the aegis of promoting the general welfare.  It is impossible for the government to empower the people as a whole to live better lives any more than it is possible for a person to lift themselves off the ground by pulling on their shoes.  What happens is that some are empowered at the expense of others.  When walking, one foot is pushed forward while the other remains stationary, but unless the advanced foot is then made stationary so that the rear foot can be lifted and moved forward, the progress of the whole advances no farther than the first step.  With the government favoring the advancement of some over others, progress of the whole will cease after the first step.

Hence, when Hillary talks about “Americans” being empowered, she speaks only of those Americans of whom she is champion.  Since the middle class of America amounts practically to the whole, progress of them will cease upon the completion of the first act of Hillary’s program.  Hillary may indeed raise taxes on the rich, and that is as far as her program will carry America.

That program of hers she proclaimed near the end of her speech.  It amounted to boiler-plate progressivism, and included gun control, hatred of the NRA, and promises to ensure appointments to the Supreme Court that would overturn Heller and Citizens United, while protecting Roe v Wade.  This places Supreme Court appointments in the forefront of the election, and makes clear that many political decision in America are now made by the Supreme Court and not by democratically elected legislatures.

The use of the Supreme Court for political purposes is not the Trump program.  The contrary to Hillary’s activist approach (an exploitation of a weakness in the US constitution) is a return to non-activism, such as espoused by the late Justice Antonin Scalia, and presently embodied in the works of Justice Clarence Thomas and Sam Alito.

Hillary’s speech on the whole was successful because she didn’t fall flat on her face.  She did not much employ the tedious, the obvious, the boilerplate, and banal bromides.  She did not too often fall into the speaking style of screeching, hectoring, shouting, and lecturing as to be painful.  She walked past a herd of elephants in the room: her chronic lying, her near indictment, her placing of America’s secrets at risk to avoid detection of corrupt dealings with the Clinton Foundation, the 33,000 emails the Russians might have in a blackmail file, the record of pay-for-play as Secretary of State, the Benghazi debacle, the Libya debacle, the Syria debacle, the Iraqi debacle, the ISIS debacle, the failed Russian reset, and the Iranian nuclear deal debacle for which she took credit.  She opposed the TPP trade deal after previously endorsing it.

In front of an apparently friendly audience (since the TV audience weren’t allowed to see the Sanders protesters.) Hillary delivered a speech adequately.

-30-

Moral Monster Believes in Science

Vincent J. Curtis

30 July 2016

In her acceptance speech at the Democrat National Convention, Hillary said, “I BELIEVE IN SCIENCE!” to great cheering.

This is supposed to be a snide reference to her belief in the theory of anthropogenic global warming, while her opponent, Donald Trump, thinks it is a hoax.  That makes her both smarter and more moral.

Biology is a science.  Biology finds that the baby in her mother’s womb is a human being, and has been from the moment of conception.  Hillary is famous for her advocacy for unencumbered abortion, sometimes euphemistically described as “a woman’s right to choose,” or the even more banal, “women’s health.”  Hillary goes so far as partial-birth abortion.

If Hillary believes in science, then she must accept that abortion is the killing of an innocent human being.

What kind of a moral monster believes in the killing of an innocent human being for any reason whatever?

So which is it?  Hillary believes in science whenever it is politically convenient, and not otherwise?  Or does she not know what she is talking about?  The former excuse also points at a moral monster.  The latter cannot be entirely dismissed.

-30-

Obama Rebukes Obama

Vincent J. Curtis

29 July 2016

The climax of Wednesday night of the Democratic National Convention was the speech by U.S. president Barack Obama.  Here’s the thing you have to understand about Barack Obama:  Bill Clinton was the first black president of the United States, and Barack Obama is the first black Clinton.

Obama entered the American political scene at the 2004 Democrat Convention as a state senator from Illinois.  He wowed the crowd with a speech that called for an end to racial divisions in America, “There is no black America, there is no white America, there is only the United States of America!” he shouted to the crowd over great cheering.  Here was a man for the future, a black man who was articulate, “clean”, devoid of the ghetto patois accent, and seemed to be the one who could end racial division in the United States once and for all.

By 2008, and only two years a US senator, Obama won the Democrat nomination by defeating Hillary Clinton and then won the general election by defeating John McCain, despite growing doubts about his authenticity and person record, to say nothing of his actual intentions as president.

Little need be said here about his record in office, except that it betrayed his promise and most of what he said.  Racial divisions have gotten worse, the economy has failed to recover adequately, respect for law and order has fallen in large part from his example and his leadership.  International terrorism has gotten worse due to his ill-advised policy choices in Iraq, Syria, and Libya.  He has exacerbated civilized political discourse due to his habits of rhetoric and laziness in thinking.  He is president to the 52 % who voted for him, and king to the 48 % who didn’t.  His signature Obamacare law has disrupted medical economics without improving care or access to care, and is expected to collapse by 2018 due to the faulty economics upon which it was deceitfully pushed through.  Deceit was also employed throughout his Administration to attain policy goals, and some even boasted about the deceit.  Obama is an extreme ideologue with little tolerance for opposition.  This is not the hope and change America was expecting from that man of 2004.  The signs were there, however, for those with eyes to see and ears to hear as early as 2007.

On Wednesday, Obama lionized Hillary Clinton as the person most qualified ever for the office of president.  So, why did he run against her in 2008?

He spoke of how great America was in 2016, after eight years of complaining about what was wrong with America.  His 2008 promise to “fundamentally transform America” was based upon the belief that there was something fundamentally wrong with America that needed radical change to fix.  And thus his program of action.  Now, however, everything is great in spite of the fact that, if America has changed, it has been for the worse.

Perhaps the most galling thing to Obama is the knowledge that he is responsible for the phenomenon of Donald Trump.

In his desperation to avoid a Trump take-over, he is praising Hillary as he never did in 2008, and is saying things about America that he never did between 2008 and July 26, 2016.

The man of 2004, the man of Hope and Change, the man of the Audacity of Hope, the man of Dreams of My Father, came back Wednesday night to praise Hillary Clinton in 2016 as he never would when his ambition was on the line.  His ambition now is to halt the Trump Train.

The Obama of 2004 came back, and to stop the Trump Train he rebuked the Obama of 2008 – 2016.

-30-

Trump, Russian Hackers, and Stupid Democrats

Vincent J. Curtis

28 July 2016

Donald Trump dominated the Democratic National Convention yesterday in a way no one could have expected, but in a way characteristic of The Donald.  He made a lot of people look ridiculous.

In the course of doing a press conference in Scranton, Pennsylvania, yesterday, Trump impishly called upon the Russians for help finding Hillary’s 33,000 missing emails.  The video of that remark and of several others were replayed over the news networks in the course of the coverage of the Democrat convention that nominated Hillary Clinton as candidate for president.

When one cable network ran a “crawl” headline that read, “Trump calls on Russians for Help Finding Missing Emails” I almost busted a gut laughing.  My stomach muscles ached afterwards, I laughed so hard.  Not just because Trump had the media talking about emails again, but because he made Hillary, the Democrats, and the Obama Administration look ridiculous.

After the 19,000 DNC email dump by WikiLeaks that showed a conspiracy to undermine the Sanders Campaign, the Democrats on Monday darkly hinted that the Russians were the ones who had hacked DNC computers and fed the information to WikiLeaks in order to boost the Trump campaign.  Trump was benefiting from Russian intervention into the American electoral process, Democrats alleged.  They would not go so far as to say that they knew the Russians had hacked the DNC for the reason below, and dark hints were as far as they would go.

The Democrat talking points had to straddle two dangerous lion pits.  One was to distract attention from the content of the leaked emails, which showed a conspiracy against Bernie Sanders.  The other was the observation that if the Russians had hacked the DNC server, how easy could it have been and likely it was that the Russians had hacked Hillary’s unsecured private server that contained highly classified national secrets.

The Democrats defended against the latter charge by saying that there was no proof of a Russian hack; but of course Hillary destroyed the evidence before handing her server over to the FBI, and the FBI were forced to reconstruct the email record forensically, piece by piece, sector by sector.

Hillary never did hand over the 33,000 emails she claimed were private, and were on her yoga classes, Chelsea’s wedding plans, and the like.  No national secrets.  But they may contain evidence of criminal conspiracy to enrich herself because of favors she granted as Secretary of State in return for contributions to the Clinton Foundation or for Bill’s speaking fees.  These private emails on a server that no longer exists were the ones Trump was referring to.

Thus when Trump playfully asked for help from Russian hackers to find Hillary’s 33,000 missing personal emails, he was making the Democrats look foolish for tying him in a dark way to the theory of Russian interference in the election to harm Hillary, Hillary herself, and the Obama Administration for their failure to recover Hillary personal emails and to prosecute Hillary for criminal conspiracy and obstruction of justice.

Making the Democrats look foolish was Trump’s crime.

I couldn’t believe how stupid so many people looked in criticizing Trump.  Even apparent grown-ups like Leon Panetta showed himself to be no brighter than dog turd, and just as lacking in a sense of humor.

Panetta and others hinted that Trump was a traitor for encouraging the Russians to hack American computers.  Early in the day, Charles Krauthammer pointed out the trap Trump had laid for Clinton by that remark and Clinton’s campaign manager fell right into it.  Democrats the entire night jumped into the same pit like so many lemmings possessed by humorless stupidity.  If Trump was a traitor for asking for Russian help, how much greater was the crime Hillary committed by putting national secrets in a place that the Russians could get them!

Even some Fox News analysts started peering over the edge nervously, considering the jump.  Dana Perino, a host of The Five, jumped with the Democrats.  She tut-tutted Trump for not acting “presidential” enough and lectured him that when running for president you have to check your sense of humor at the door.

Trump has dominated the Democrat convention so far in a way that could never be anticipated.  The Democrats and the media are still talking about emails and making themselves look foolish to the average viewer for failing to see how ridiculous Trump is making them all look.  Trump is the only adult in the room: he and the TV viewers.

He has a devastating sense of humor.

One can only await with relish the campaign in the fall.  I can only hope my stomach muscles can hold out.

-30-

Why Comey Recommended Against Prosecuting Hillary

Vincent J. Curtis

5 July 2016

Why did FBI Director James Comey conclude that "no reasonable prosecutor" would expect to get a conviction against Hillary for her gross negligence in handling classified information on her private server?

Because he would have to accuse President Obama as well.

That would be very hard on the Republic.  Comey would be declaring no confidence in his ultimate boss, President Obama.  That would be very hard for him to do, and not resign.  Ditto for a U.S. Attorney, or U.S. Attorney-General.

There are only so many people on earth with whom Hillary could have had a conversation about Top Secret - Special Compartmented Information.  They would include her top adviser in the State Department, the relevant head of the intelligence agency, maybe the President's National Security Adviser, and President Barack Obama himself.

The career civil servants are abundantly aware of the proper handling of that kind of material, and serve beyond the current Administration.  Their careers would be at risk if they did that.

The amateurs would be Hillary herself, Barack Obama, and maybe the NSA. Obama has no more regard for the professional systems than Hillary does.

If Obama was the one with whom Hillary was having these conversations that Comey condemned as ought never to have been had on unsecured means, then Hillary's defense would be that the president knew and approved it since he was a part of it.  In addition, the email chains containing these TS-SCI matters would likely have to be entered as evidence at trial.

That the president knew and approved, and that he ought therefore also to be in the docket with her, would constitute a difficult defense to overcome.  The risk of the secret material being entered in evidence at trial would clinch the matter for the "reasonable prosecutor."

Obama denied knowing about Hillary's secret server, but we now know that he did correspond with Hillary on a few occasions on her private server, at least 22 times.  Obama knew the danger of being complicit, and that's why he denied knowing about it, and why Hillary did not turn over those emails to the State Department because they could be so damaging to her possible protector.

Find out who Hillary was having the TS-SCI conversation with, and we'll understand why Comey recommended against prosecution.

-30-

Walkom Admits to Knowing Nothing

Vincent J. Curtis

27 July 2016

Yesterday, the Hamilton Spectator published an Op-Ed piece by the mentally exhausted and mentally famished Toronto Star typist Thomas Walkom.  He can’t figure out why Hillary Clinton is hated and mistrusted!

Walkom wonders, “What is it about Hillary Clinton?”  Why is she so hated by Republicans and held in suspicion by Democrats?

He decides on the basis of an opinion by a blogger named Michael Arnovitz that Hillary is in large part, “paying the political price of being a strong woman playing what is traditionally viewed as a man’s game.”

He goes on to say that, “It’s hard to imagine that this could be true in 2016….but I confess that I can’t think of anything else.”

It is really quite pathetic of an opinion columnist not to be able to think of anything else.  It is hard to imagine that Hillary is hated by Republicans in 2016 because she is a strong woman in politics.  After all, the Republicans nominated Sarah Palin for Vice President in the 2008 election, and presently have numerous strong female governors, congresswomen, and Senators of which they are quite proud.  They hold Margaret Thatcher in the highest admiration.

So, simply being a strong woman in politics can’t be it.  The pathetic play for feminist sympathy by Thomas Walkom falls flat on its face at the slightest investigation.

To discover why Republicans might be angry with Hillary Clinton, let us start with examining what anger is, and why it is aroused.

In his work, The Art of Rhetoric Aristotle defined anger as follows: a desire, accompanied by pain, for revenge, for an obvious belittlement of oneself or one of one’s dependents, the belittlement being uncalled for.  He goes on to say that belittlement is a realization of an opinion about what seems to be of no value, the kinds of belittlement being contempt, spite, and insult.  An insult consists of such things as involve shame for the victim…for the fun of it.

Why would Republicans be angry with Hillary Clinton?  Perhaps because of her obvious contempt for them and her insults of them.  For example, Hillary took great joy in naming Republicans, not ISIS or other enemies of America, not poverty or some such, but Republicans as her enemy during an interview in the 2016 primary campaign.

Throughout her career as first lady, senator from New York, and Secretary of State, she has repeatedly treated Republicans with contempt.  Her obvious perjuries before congressional committees and her evasions are signs of contempt, as well as of guilt.  Her frequent skirting of the law in order to enrich herself, to gain political advantage, and to avoid constitutional scrutiny are other signs of contempt for Republicans and the law.  Her set-up of a private email server was done to evade FOIA requests and to hide the collusion between the Clinton Foundation and herself as Secretary of State.  Her privacy was more important to her than preserving the secrets of the United States. Republicans are motivated, in her opinion, by the basest of motives, including racism, sexism, and the enrichment of their friends at the expense of the poor and downtrodden.

That might be some reasons why Republicans are angry with Hillary Clinton.

A reason why Democrats might be distrustful of Hillary Clinton are the lies she has been caught in.  One can never be sure with a Clinton the purpose of the lie; all you can be sure of is that you are being lied to.  Lying breeds distrust, especially if you are the one harmed by the lie.  Sanders’ supporters were hurt by Hillary’s lies.  Being lied to your face can breed anger and mistrust.

This isn’t hard to figure out, or even generate 750 words over.

I have dealt with Walcom before, as a lousy sycophant for Justin Trudeau and the Liberal party.  With his admission of knowing nothing and not even being able to muster the imagination why Hillary might evoke anger and distrust other than for base motives, I am done with this admitted failure.

-30-

Progressive Kid Offers Chalice of Kool-Aid

Vincent J. Curtis

20 July 2016

I promised myself to say no more about Hamilton's LRT.  I'm telling myself that I'm not really breaking my promise today, because this is more about progressivism and persuasion.  This concerns the use of an op-ed piece in favor of the LRT by the Hamilton Spectator in its bid to see the LRT project put through.

The Hamilton Spectator today published an op-ed piece by Matt Pinder, headlined "Time to go all-in on Hamilton LRT."  Pinder is described as "a cyclist, driver, transit user, and proud graduate of McMaster University.  Currently working as a transportation researcher, he is passionate about the future of mobility."  The picture accompanying the article makes Mr. Pinder look as though he was in his mid-20s.  You have to wonder at the desperation of the Spectator's editors that they can't find anybody of greater weight than Pinder to advance the case.

In reading this piece by Matt Pinder, I asked myself why I should be persuaded by what he said?  He’s a kid.  He’s drunk the LRT kool-aid.  From his profile, it doesn’t look like he drives much.  He regurgitates the pro-LRT talking points with the energy and confidence of a used-car salesman (with due apologies to used-car salesmen).  He uses words like, “absolutely.”  I put that down to youth and inexperience.

He misses the obvious:  Touting the “fourth year in a row, more than $1 billion in new construction permits were approved in 2015,” it doesn’t occur to him that the $1 billion LRT construction project will represent less than 10 percent of all construction in this city by the time it is finished.  So, what makes this billion so much more crucial than the more than $15 billion in private construction that will take place by the time the LRT is finished?

He is full of advice, sacrifices we will have to make, (good for us sacrifices!) for making transit work, and that it will improve our “waistlines,” as a benefit.  It is all up to us, you realize.

It’s not hard to figure this out.  That $15 billion is private money.  The LRT is a government thing.  Transit is government run.  Making this work is the moral equivalent of war.

He’s a progressive.  And that’s all you need to know.

-30-

The $15 billion in private investment in construction in Hamilton that will happen between 2011 and the completion of the LRT project (between 2024 and 2028) is found by extrapolating the four years of more than $1 billion referenced in the article to the end of the project.  The point is that the LRT was and is held to be an economic stimulus to Hamilton, and here it is actually a small amount compared to private investment.  So, what was it's point, again?

Anglican Church Votes Against Christianity

Vincent J. Curtis

18 July 2016

The Anglican Church of Canada recently voted to permit gay marriage to be celebrated in Anglican Churches.  The Hamilton Spectator endorsed the endorsement in an editorial headlined, "Anglicans Battered, but on the side of right."

Contrary to the editorial, the Anglican Church, certainly that part of it belonging to the Diocese of Niagara with its decision to endorse so-called “same-sex” marriage, has ceased to be a Christian Church.

It is one thing to forgive sin; it is quite another to endorse it.  To endorse sin, the Anglican Church must abandon natural law, since it is through natural law that moral judgments are made.

The talk about the Anglican Church “being on the side of right,” is absurd.  The moral analysis that leads to such a conclusion is a disguised form of “might makes right.”  There is no moral or metaphysical justification for such a thing as “same-sex” marriage, and to say that there is, is to say there is nothing right or wrong.  Including this condemnation of it.

The moral analysis of truly Christian churches is found in natural law, and natural law finds the purpose of marriage to be procreation.  (Hold your objections until you have researched this aspect of natural law.)

Obviously, a homosexual union cannot in any circumstances result in procreation, and hence must be rejected a priori as metaphysically legitimate.  A marriage is between a man and a woman because that is what a marriage simply is.

In endorsing same-sex marriage, the Anglican Church has abandoned the basis to morally condemn anyone or anything, for any reason.

-30-

 

Of mice and cheese

Vincent J. Curtis

2 July 2016

The Hamilton Spectator published two editorials today, the gist of which was to endorse progressivist measures.  The acts may not be progressive in totality.  The means may not be progressive, but the means aim at progressive ends; and that must make them good, right?

The first editorial endorsed the action of the new Mayor of London to ban certain ads, and was entitled, "A step toward better body acceptance."  The second editorial was a reprint from the Toronto Star, entitled, "Ottawa should name offshore tax cheats."  That sounds reasonable, until you learn in the details that the offenders aren't guilty of cheating, or anything else at all.  Except for having a different opinion from a civil servant over the interpretation of tax law, and who were not charged or convicted of anything.

Mouse traps work because the mouse notices the cheese but not the trap.  Two (!) editorials published in Saturday’s Spectator provide examples of progressive mice seeing cheese but failing to observe the trap.

The editorial endorsed the Mayor of London’s decision to ban ads that promote “unrealistic expectations” of bodies.  This aim is cheese for progressives.  The progressive banned list includes body shaming, self-image, and the like.

The trap progressives miss is that the Mayor of London proclaimed himself as having the power to censor advertising material.   Advertising is a form of speech, and a minor politician just grabbed the power to censor speech within his domain in accordance with his personal standards.  Those standards just happen in this case to coincide with the aims of progressives, but what will they do when they don’t?  Write an editorial denouncing the power-grab?  Hopefully, that won’t be censored.

The second trap was of the mouse’s own making.  The Toronto Star would love to publish the names of “offshore tax cheats.”  The term “offshore tax cheats” is the cheese.  The trap is that the cheaters are not really cheats.  They are people with whom the CRA struck a deal, and so the cheaters were never convicted of anything.  And the reason a deal was struck was that the CRA wasn’t sure of a conviction before a judge.  A deal, then, is just that – a business deal, not a crime.

The Star wants the CRA to help them blacken the name of someone who struck an agreement with the CRA over the administration of tax law.  Thus we give to a civil servant the power to destroy the reputation of the person he is negotiating with, or simply chooses to disagree with.  I can understand why a gossip sheet might like the idea, but not responsible people.

These instances show why the government should have less power, not more.  But progressives love to tell others what to do, and government has the power to tell people what to do.  That is why progressives want bigger government, regardless of peril.

-30-

Progressive Persuasion: Prove you love me you bigot!

Vincent J. Curtis

30 June 2016

This morning, the publisher of the Hamilton Spectator, Paul Berton, published an editorial which expressed opposition to the holding of a referendum on the LRT project in Hamilton.  His reason was that the mood of the unwashed and uneducated in Hamilton was such as to oppose an LRT.  A recent example of such a mood was the decision in the Brexit referendum.

Since the construction of the LRT is on the progressivist agenda, holding a referendum on it would be bad he holds, because referenda tend to result in progressivism's defeat.

Owing to the anti-intellectual attitude and bigotedness of the majority of the population, progressivism loses referenda.   Therefore referenda as such are bad. Consequently, a referendum on the LRT is bad.

The progressives would likely lose, and losing would expose the lack of hold (I mean trust) that progressivists have over the electorate on top of the defeat of the progressive idea that was the particular subject of the referendum.

He then concludes with, can't we all just be friends?  And you can prove your friendship to me by allowing this particular item on the progressivist agenda!  ("It is up to all of us - urban, suburban, rural - to look for ways to understand each other, and move forward, not backward, as comfortably as we can."  is how he expressed it)

 

You have to admire progressives.  It is not just that they think they are right – most people do – but the smugness of their conviction is outstanding.

Today, we are treated to the advice that referenda are probably bad things at the moment because the mood of the non-university educated is anti-progressive.  The great unwashed are anti-intellectual and bigoted, and can’t be reached.  And there is nothing more intellectual than a progressive.

If a referenda on a progressivist project were held, the bigoted and uneducated anti-intellectuals would get to vote too, and since there are so many of them, the progressive project would likely be defeated at the polls.   Like Brexit.  And hard to explain anti-democratic measures would have to be employed to put things right again. 

That was today.  Yesterday, we were treated to the smug condemnation of residential schools by a proud Hamilton progressive, the president of McMaster University.  It never occurred to him that the residential school movement, in which the aim was to raise the aboriginal to the cultural and educative standards of the European, was a progressivist project of those days and was conceived and perpetrated by the good president’s intellectual forebears.  Then he announced proudly that his University squatted on the traditional territory of the Mississauga and Haudenosaunee “nations”, never thinking that perhaps he might be asked to return the goods.

I can understand why good progressives are so smug in the conviction that they are right.  They never have to answer their critics because their critics are hideous, immoral, and their feelings don’t count.

-30-

McMaster President Steps in It

Vincent J. Curtis

29 June 2016

Patrick Dean is the president of McMaster University in Hamilton, ON.  He is a great admirer of John Dewey, an American educator and famous progressive whose work spanned the 1890s to the 1930s.  Dean, by his own admission, is a progressive and follower of Dewey and in a speech to the graduates of the class of 2016, President Dean remarked at length about the aims of education and how good and admirable they can be. They are good and admirable, in short, when they advance the progressivist agenda of today.  Not of yesterday, but of today.  (Apparently, the value of education per se holds no value, only the secondary political aims have value.)

Progressive's memory is remarkably short and selective.  A portion of his speech was reproduced in the Hamilton Spectator, and was published on this date on the opinion page.

The constancy of the progressivist agenda is that it seeks to advance the good, as seen and defined by the "experts."  The trouble is, the experts are technocrats whose underlying philosophy that guides their judgment of the good is undeclared, unexamined, and unsystematic.  But that they aim at the good must make their opponents the supporters of evil.

For those not up on the topic, residential schools was a program run by the Canadian government from the 1870s to the 1990s with the aim of educating Canada's aboriginal population to the level of the Europeans.  Presently, the programmed is condemned because it secondarily aimed at destroying the neolithic culture of the Indian tribes of Canada.

Progressives are often quite unaware of themselves:

You have to admire the sense of purity that progressives have of themselves.  Even when they hold their own mistakes before their eyes, they fail to discover their work in it.

Patrick Dean, President of McMaster University, is one such progressive.  A great admirer of John Dewey, Dean’s speech to graduates is full of the condescension, unselfawareness, and racism of the man he admires.

Education can be a powerful agent of social reformation and should not allow itself to be the enemy of progress and reform, Dean holds.  He then turns to Residential Schools.  What was an object of Residential Schools?  Why, the social reformation and progress – of aboriginals!

Dean is appalled to say that the progressives of the late 19^th century (the John Deweys of Canada) held that “the aim of education [of aboriginals] is to destroy the Indian.”  The experts of that day compared that Neolithic culture of Canada’s aboriginals with that of European society and decided that if aboriginals were to survive at all, they had to be educated as Europeans.

Today’s experts now condemn that policy of education of aboriginals as destructive, an attempt at cultural hegemony and political control.  But these Monday morning quarterbacks don’t say what they would have done differently, or address the consequences of their prescription.  They just condemn their intellectual forebears without recognizing the family heritage, and move on.

It gets worse.  Dean proudly announced that McMaster University squats on traditional territories of the Mississauga and Haudenosaunee Nations, recognized and protected as such by the treaty of “Dish With One Spoon” wampum agreement.  When is President Dean going to realize what he just said and begin the process of returning the filched territory back to its rightful owners?

-30-

  

Questions for Greta

Vincent J. Curtis

30 June 2016

Greta van Susteren is a smart lawyer and the host of a TV interview show for over 20 years.  She has been beside herself over the secret meeting of US Attorney-General Loretta Lynch and retired president Bill Clinton.  It took place in Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix, Arizona, on Monday, June 27.  Specifically, it took place on the tarmac of the airport where the small aircraft of high-powered people park their planes. The meeting was discovered by a local news reporter.

Greta is outraged at the impropriety of the meeting and she has asked a lot of questions of her guests about the propriety of the meeting.  Most of her guests agree about the impropriety of the meeting, but are inclined to give A-G Lynch the benefit of the doubt based on their past knowledge of her.

My journalistic instincts would like to see these questions asked:

What business did the A-G of the United States have in Phoenix, on a Monday?

Her plane was parked next to the one holding Bill Clinton, so much so that Clinton was able to deplane his own aircraft and board Lynch's aircraft.  Why was her private aircraft parked on the tarmac?  Why was it not in line for take-off or servicing?

How was it that Lynch's business schedule had enough free time on it that she could entertain Mr. Clinton for 30 minutes?  Was her Limo parked with its engine running waiting for her?

How did anyone on-board know that there would be time for Bill Clinton to clamber on board for a chit-chat before the aircraft had to take-off or move?

What was Bill Clinton doing in Phoenix, on a Monday?  On the tarmac, no less?  Why didn’t his security detail hustle him indoors and not exposed out in the open?

How did Bill Clinton know that a U.S. cabinet officer would be on-board the aircraft?  Otherwise, why would he and his security detail approach the aircraft?

I have seen a lot of Fox commentators pass off Bill Clinton’s approaching the aircraft as just his amiable bumpkin self being itself.  Those who think Bill Clinton is an amiable fool are themselves fools.

The object lesson of this event for Lynch, and others, is that even getting physically close to the Clintons can get you covered in political filth.

-30-