Archive for February, 2021

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Last Crusade 52: The War of Utopia and Paradise

Posted February 26, 2021 By John C Wright

To recover the Church and the world requires the truth. Nothing else will save us.

All other institutions on earth are earthly. Only the Church is immortal, eternal, divine, and aims at something beyond the walls of the world. The Church can be, and has been corrupted, and her spirit is slain. But only the Church knows the secret of returning from the dead. She has done so before. No worldly power can say the same.

We can put no faith in the promises of worldly powers, first, because they are faithless, second, because they are worldly, and finally, because they are powerless.

They are powerless because worldly things are inevitably corrupt, and corruption cannot cure corruption: the leprous doctor cannot cure you of leprosy, because you will contract it from him. All hope in the worldly powers is vanity, because these powers, being worldly, have no love in them, and, without love, there is no beauty, no virtue, no truth.

This sad, benighted enemy has infiltrated the Church, and is dousing her lamps.

We live in the era of the silent congregation. The world has made the Church worldly. We, the faithful, we faithlessly stood by, quite silently, and silently let that happen.

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Last Report on Unit Twenty-Two, Section Three, Transcription of Concluding Radio Traffic

Posted February 24, 2021 By John C Wright

Last Report on Unit Twenty-Two, Section Three, Transcription of Concluding Radio Traffic, is now posted.

Last Report on Unit Twenty-Two

This is a reconstruction and transcription of the concluding segment of radio traffic between 22 and K71 translated from binary neuro-code.

Meeting notes contain a final report on Unit K71 as well.

Be it noted that the linguistic department wishes this segment and the one prior to be examined for evidence of neuro-semiotic psychological aberration, particularly in light of Unit 22 deducing the meaning of words and concepts on the UNACCEPTABLE list. The security department recommends against such examination.

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The Mountain Who Writes now Speaks

Posted February 20, 2021 By John C Wright

This is today’s must-read reading. From Larry Correia. My immense admiration for the man long ago turned to love.

https://monsterhunternation.com/2021/02/19/an-open-letter-to-the-old-time-fans-at-worldcon/

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A Psalm for Lent

Posted February 18, 2021 By John C Wright

Psalm 94: The Lord Will Not Forget His People

O LORD God, to whom vengeance belongeth; O God, to whom vengeance belongeth, shew thyself.

Lift up thyself, thou judge of the earth: render a reward to the proud.

LORD, how long shall the wicked, how long shall the wicked triumph?

How long shall they utter and speak hard things? and all the workers of iniquity boast themselves?

They break in pieces thy people, O LORD, and afflict thine heritage.

They slay the widow and the stranger, and murder the fatherless.

Yet they say, The LORD shall not see, neither shall the God of Jacob regard it.

Understand, ye brutish among the people: and ye fools, when will ye be wise?

He that planted the ear, shall he not hear? he that formed the eye, shall he not see?

He that chastiseth the heathen, shall not he correct? he that teacheth man knowledge, shall not he know?

The LORD knoweth the thoughts of man, that they are vanity.

Blessed is the man whom thou chastenest, O LORD, and teachest him out of thy law;

That thou mayest give him rest from the days of adversity, until the pit be digged for the wicked.

For the LORD will not cast off his people, neither will he forsake his inheritance.

But judgment shall return unto righteousness: and all the upright in heart shall follow it.

Who will rise up for me against the evildoers? or who will stand up for me against the workers of iniquity?

Unless the LORD had been my help, my soul had almost dwelt in silence.

When I said, My foot slippeth; thy mercy, O LORD, held me up.

In the multitude of my thoughts within me thy comforts delight my soul.

Shall the throne of iniquity have fellowship with thee, which frameth mischief by a law?

They gather themselves together against the soul of the righteous, and condemn the innocent blood.

But the LORD is my defence; and my God is the rock of my refuge.

And he shall bring upon them their own iniquity, and shall cut them off in their own wickedness; yea, the LORD our God shall cut them off.

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Though Police Ambush LifeSite News

Posted February 18, 2021 By John C Wright

From LifeSiteNews 

Read the whole thing here

LifeSiteNews has been permanently banned on YouTube. Click HERE to sign up to receive emails when we add to our video library.

NEW YORK, February 16, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) — An acclaimed Catholic author and essayist has called upon Joe Biden to call time on attacks by Big Tech and the mainstream media on ordinary believing Catholics.

In her second open letter to Biden, published in Newsweek, Mary Eberstadt listed several examples of recent censorship and defamation of Catholics or Catholic institutions because they express the doctrines of their faith, and stated:

Mr. President, you are the most visible Catholic political leader in the world. You have a unique opportunity, once again, to demonstrate your stated commitment to being president for all. It’s the bully pulpit. Call off the woke online haters stalking your fellow Christians. Call out the ugly, un-American tradition of which they are part. Tell your progressive allies, and everyone else, that prejudice remains prejudice—even when it is aimed against people who did not vote for you.

These Catholic institutions included Catholic World Report (CWR), the news wing of the venerable Ignatius Press, which primarily publishes works of Catholic philosophy and theology, often by popes and saints. CWR was temporarily banned from Twitter for posting a news item in which it factually stated that “Biden plans to nominate Dr. Rachel Levine, a biological man identifying as a transgender woman who has served as Philadelphia’s health secretary since 2017, to be HHS Secretary for Health.”

“Days later, authorities relent and restored the account,” Eberstadt observed.

“But the message they sent was loud and menacing. If a cultural authority as established as Ignatius Press can be punished online for being Catholic, who will be spared?

…

Olson thinks that appealing to Biden as a fellow Catholic is “a pointless exercise, except to expose just how contrary Biden’s actions and stances so often are to clear Catholic teaching about sexuality, marriage, life, and related matters.”

“Biden’s many anti-life initiatives during his first weeks in office tell us what we need to know about his approach and priorities,” he added.

“And they are rarely, if ever, pro-Catholic. I don’t expect him to do much, if anything, to push back against the online hectoring, bullying, and bigotry.”

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Larry Correia on the Thought Police Ambush against Baen’s Bar

Posted February 17, 2021 By John C Wright

An article to steel the resolve and cure the blindness of anyone unwary enough to underestimate the remorseless malice of the enemy, now comes a column at Larry Correia’s Monster Hunter International Website.

Please note the attack was coordinated, using the “Chinese Whisper” techniques beloved by bitter and wrinkle-faced gossipy hags and bloodthirsty communist agitators alike.

As he says, If you would like to help out, please spread the word. Go buy some Baen Books and help support publishers who don’t give in to bullies. Everyone needs to stand up to these dirtbags

I would like to help out. This is my effort to spread the word.

I suggest ordering from Baen direct.

https://www.baen.com

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Last Report on Unit Twenty-Two, Section Two, Transcription of Preliminary Radio Traffic

Posted February 17, 2021 By John C Wright

Last Report on Unit Twenty-Two, Section Two, Transcription of Preliminary Radio Traffic, is now posted.

Last Report on Unit Twenty-Two

This is a reconstruction and transcription of the initial segment of radio traffic between 22 and K71 translated from binary neuro-code to colloquial Nearnglish. It has been edited for clarity and linear continuity.

The final decision by 22 to disobey orders took place in a second segment of radio impulses. This first segment contains the preliminary evidence of mental deviation from conformity. The source of the deviation is unclear. This file is included for context.

 

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Last Crusade 51: To Confound the Wise

Posted February 16, 2021 By John C Wright

After long delay, my pen resumes the Everestian task of outlining the strategy of the Last Crusade, to retake the soul of the West, and reignite the lamps of civilization.

We turn now to the question of how to redeem the ivory towers and airy salons of the intellectuals from the poisonous spiderwebs of pride and folly that have snared, cocooned, and paralyzed the mental life of Christendom.

The popular culture currently sees Caesar, that is, worldly political power, as the savior for all life’s ills. Nonetheless, the deepest battle of the Last Crusade is not in politics, but in the intellectual world, who have no power but the pen.

This is the battle of ideas.

The reason why I call it the deepest battle is because, like the roots of a tree, the corruption of the intellect serves as a foundation for all the other corruption the Last Crusade must fight, in art, in politics, in economics, and so on. If the roots are infected, no health of branch or bough, flower or fruit will long endure.

I also call it deep, because, like a buried war-bunker, the chambers and salons and ivory towers of the intellectual class are an underworld hidden from the sight of the common man.

It is also an underworld in the sense of being a criminal enterprise, namely, a fraud.

And it is an underworld in a final sense as well: in the center of the chambers of the intellect sits the fallen archangel of pride enthroned, as in the realm of hell.

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Cops and Kids

Posted February 15, 2021 By John C Wright

For you viewing pleasure, I here reproduce a photograph of Virginia’s Franklin County Sheriff and four deputies, who by remarkable coincidence welcomed five little girls into the world within days of each other.

Sherriff Bill Overton is holding his granddaughter, and four of Franklin County’s finest are holding their daughters.

I hope the stalwart young men enjoy the days, which pass swiftly. My youngest just turned eighteen this month. The time when I could toss my child into the air or hold him under my arm like a football, are past, and will not come again.

I was puzzled that the girls were in blue rather than pink in their bows, but then I was told that they form a “thin, blue line” of adorable.

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Ban Retracted

Posted February 15, 2021 By John C Wright

I banned the heckler Ingbliss for violations of my rules against heckling and blasphemy but specifically, for announcing that ‘might makes right’ — which, if taken literally, grants me permission to ban her merely on the ground of having the power to do so.

However, I offered this provision: If a single reader will tell me he wishes to continue the conversation with Ingbliss, I will retract the ban.

A reader has done so. The ban is retracted.

APPENDED LATER: Ingbliss immediately reaffirmed that there is no such thing as rights nor justice, courtesy nor honor, nor any reason to treat one’s fellow man with respect, except by arbitrary sentiment.

I feel no such sentiment.

She went on to say that she has learned nothing from the event, and vowed never to learn anything. She holds it to be a point of pride never to listen, never to explain herself, never to answer questions, never to shut up.

She admits, nay, she boasts, that she will add no value to any conversation. She scorns those who do.

I will do the child the honor of taking at her word, as if she means what she says.

The ban is reinstated.

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Jinjang — YA Science Fiction on Sale Today

Posted February 12, 2021 By Mrs. Wright

This Chistian YA Science Fiction, Jinjang, is published by my son and written by a lovely Catholic woman who is a loyal supporter of mine who has done great good for our family through the years.

On sale this weekend for 99 cents.

As different as Night and Day.

Tender One lost her beloved brother, and now someone in this unfamiliar, underground Night Dweller community wants Tender One dead. If she can overcome her culture shock, maybe she can discover the truth before anyone else is harmed.

Nub is fascinated by Tender One and her people—he has never met a Day Dweller before—but he is also the prime suspect. Will Tender One reject this stranger who looks nothing like her people? Or will she find the courage to follow her heart?

As cultures clash, love is kindled on Jinjang, the world where a year is but a single day.

Buy it now!

Get Jinjang today!

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Quotha

Posted February 12, 2021 By John C Wright

The quote for today is from Edward Feser:

“… the early modern philosophers’ transition away from Aristotelianism to a mechanical understanding of nature constituted not an advance but a regression, a willful forgetting of crucial distinctions and categories the drawing and elucidation of which had been one of the great achievements of Scholasticism, and a conceptual impoverishment that inevitably created problems rather than solved them.”

Hear, hear.

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Question for the Readers

Posted February 11, 2021 By John C Wright

A heckler named Ingbliss has just announced that might makes right, and that this is the only organizing principle of society.

At this point, if I use what little might I have over this wretch, namely, to ban or not to ban, in a arbitrary and high handed fashion, by my standards, I would be wrong, but by the standard of Ingbliss, right. This is the same thing I have done periodically to anyone who announces a similar standard concerning courtesy, or freedom of speech. I enforce it on them, to the small degree I can.

My rule against heckling and strawman arguments have already been violated dozens of times, as has my rule against blasphemy.

But I will offer the same deal Hela offered Baldur’s ghost. If a single reader will tell me he wishes to continue the conversation with Ingbliss, I will retract the ban.

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Last Report on Unit Twenty-Two, Section One, Committee Notes

Posted February 10, 2021 By John C Wright

Last Report on Unit Twenty-Two, Section One, Committee Notes, is now posted.

Last Report on Unit Twenty-Two

A reconstruction of the last events leading up to the theft of the ore-barge are transcribed here, in the coded file listed onscreen.

This will be the final report on the rogue Unit 22.

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A Question from Man to Machine

Posted February 9, 2021 By John C Wright

I propose this question to any reader who would care to answer:

Let us grant for the sake of argument that complex biological organisms, such as two year old girls abducted by slavetraders, and complex artifacts with moving part, such as motorized bicycles, are members of the same category, and can be called by the same word.

Is it morally wrong to dismember and kill a two-year girl-child for money? That is, assuming the slavemaster who owns the young child hired you lawfully.

Likewise, is it morally wrong to dismantle and destroy a two-year old motorized bicycle for money? That is, assuming the owner who owns the motor-bicycle hired you lawfully.

The slave girl is a member of the set that includes both living organisms and artifacts with moving parts. Likewise, the motor-bicycle is a member of the set that includes both living organisms and artifacts with moving parts.

Therefore the moral rules which apply to one apply to the other, do they not? We have agreed to use one word to refer to both topics. Therefore the moral rules which apply to one apply to the other, do they not?

If not, why not?

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