Chateau Lloyd

Back in 1987, Paul Kennedy's The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers created a huge discussion within the strategic community.  It was a sweeping survey of international power politics using extensive data sets to map out the strengths and weaknesses of the various hegemons.

I devoured it, and was delighted to find that was on the required reading list for one of my classes when I went to college.  I was more than a little smug when I set my battered hardcover edition down on the table, where it stood out from the paperback editions everyone else had picked up at the student book store.  My was a first edition, meaning I read it as a freshman in high school.

Anyhow, in retrospect Kennedy has been spectacularly wrong in his analysis.  "Imperial Overstretch" does not exist.  Empires often rise and fall simply because of a leadership crisis.  As we are seeing in real time, the ongoing decline of many nations is simply a choice of the ruling class.  They prefer poorer, squabbling subjects rather than independent, prosperous one.  The post-war dissolution of the British Empire was not economically or strategically necessary but instead the result of a socialist political agenda.

Of particular note was Kennedy's prediction that Japan would soon displace the US at a global power.  Talk about a miss!  

Anyhow, I do like Kennedy's book as a survey of history and also the framing he used in terms of describing the power structures over the centuries.  He described the 20th Century as the crisis of the great powers and the coming of a bipolar world, which was the one he was describing in 1987.  That note that the US was about to collapse because of the Reagan buildup was widely regarded as absurd, and the facts bore it out.  The Berlin Wall fell in 1989, and the bipolar world became a unipolar one, with the United States standing unchallenged.

That world no longer exists, and there are three great powers, along with several rising contenders.  The final nail in the coffin to the unipolar world was the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which proved decisively that all the blather about Russia having a GDP the size of the Netherlands was bad propaganda.

In fact, the very measure of GDP is now highly suspect, since it rates government spending as the same as consumption and investment, which is clearly is not.  We need a new measure to measure, which cuts out government spending that does not product tangible things like roads or warships.

The growing understanding in American circles of this strategic reality means that we can perhaps finally put away anti-Russian animus and a Cold War mentality and look at the world as it is.  Russia and China are superpowers in their own right, and will not accept dictation from Washington.  Weaponizing currency and banking only creates incentives go create alternative means of exchange that are less vulnerable to external manipulation.

India is another rising power, though less strategically ambitious.  Brazil remains the nation of the future and always will be (to recycle an old joke).

The upshot is that we are in a new strategic environment where realpolitik and strategic necessity must supersede ideology.   Gone are the days when presidential pronouncements produced immediate and positive results.  The blindness of our leadership greatly increased the risk of miscalculation that could have had catastrophic consequences.

I think the new US leadership understands this, and as a result I'm sleeping a little better at night.

Some years ago I got a copy of Bulfinch's Mythology, which I think was a gift from my father.  He has a copy, and highly recommended it.

This is one of the standard books that every respectable house had in it, along with a Bible, a dictionary, and some Mark Twain.

The original work was from the 19th Century and help bring Greek and Norse mythology alive in a world where only the elites could study them in the original languages.  It has since been edited and provided with a modern commentary, which makes some corrections, but sadly has the typical scholarly viewpoint that all religions are bunk.

What is more, it takes the point of view that similarities in mythology are proof that things were "borrowed," and one sees this particularly in the notion that the Bible was cribbed together from Egyptian and Babylonian faiths.  

The notion that everyone is trying to describe the same spiritual events from different perspectives is of course unthinkable, because no amount of proof is sufficient to convince the scholarly atheists.

I must give credit to the Lord of Spirits podcast, which opened my eyes to the reality of the spirit world.  I have since deepened that by reading further into Catholic mysticism and of course several accounts of spiritual warfare.

What really stood out to me upon digging back into Bulfinch's Mythology was how he was drawing the lines more than a century ago, and using the premise that the Bible was correct.  Of course, one can go back the St. Augustine to find assertions that the Greco-Roman deities were really fallen angels, so nothing is really new.

At any rate, it's inspiring me to write again, though I'll need to read more first before I have my thoughts fully formed.

Perhaps the most frustrating thing about the debate over migration and immigration is the unwillingness of the U.S. bishops to take an actual position on the issue.  Everything is cloaked in ambiguity, vague references to the "system being broken" and "clearly reform is needed" without actually specifying what is broken and how it might be fixed.

If you ask most Americans, they will agree that the system is broken and that fix is robust enforcement of existing laws and procedures.  The problems of rampant crime, housing shortages, massive increases in public spending (which fuels inflation) would all be solved if the migrants stopped coming and the ones illegally here went home.

This would require less effort from Catholic Charities, however, and it is clear that mission creep and empire-building has engulfed much of the charitable community to the point of warping their perspective.  Instead of discouraging migration, they want more of it, because it grows their little empires.

Many commentators have noted that the American bishops are far less willing to break the law - or even push up to the edge of its boundaries - on questions like sexuality or the sanctity of life.  Are lawsuits being field against abortion clinics on the grounds of poor sanitation?  If so, I haven't heard about  it.  A nominally Catholic president used the full power of government to provide abortion using tax dollars and pushed harmful drugs and surgical mutilation and the Vatican could not only be bothered to write pastoral letter, it implied that was fine for him to continue to receive the Eucharist.

A reasonable observer might conclude that this was to keep the hundreds of millions of dollars flowing into episcopal coffers.

There is of course a place for pragmatism, but what positive good emerges from this pact with the devil?  Human life is trashed in both transactions because the migrants are overwhelmingly young men, not widows and orphans, and the cost of resettlement is borne by the poor and working class, who must compete against lower-wage worker for their living.

The open border is also a pathway for dangerous drugs and weapons, facilitates human trafficking and harms other nations by distracting their people and excusing their poor leadership.

There is such a thing as harmful charity, acts that may be well-intentioned but are ultimately harmful.  A classic example of this is giving money to beggars on the street.  Some years ago, some of these people realized that it was quite profitable to hit up people coming out of Mass, since they were naturally in a charitable mood.  What started with good intentions ended up in creating a regular hangout for criminals, who were not content with voluntary contributions and began to break into cars in the parking lot during Mass.

The pastor had to make repeated announcements, both in the bulletin and at the conclusion of Mass that this practice had to stop.  Those who wished to help were urged to instead offer paper bags with some moist towelettes and granola bars, along with the address to the local shelter.

As turned out, none of that was wanted, just money for drugs or alcohol.  I've personally encountered several people who clamed they needed cash for various problems and when I've offered an alternative solution, they get annoyed and leave.

The point is that the bishops are not naive enough to think that only adorable urchins and long-suffering widows are  crossing the border, or that the benefits they provide aren't creating incentives for ever more people to come.

This brings us back to the original question: what is the ideal number of immigrants?  By what process should they be selected?

Pope Francis' letter does not answer any of these questions, and instead talks of human dignity, of which there is precious little in the outlaw communities created by uncontrolled migration.  Indeed, there seems to be an underlying current that open borders are actually a moral imperative, which is not only at odds with the magisterium and doctrines of the church, it is without historical precedent.

It would represent the ultimate application of liberalism, reducing people to isolated individuals driven purely by material needs.  Family, culture, faith - all of these would fall away as people moved to where the work was.  This is in fact the dream of the Wall Street Journal editorial board, which sees people only as a factor in production.

It is a vile philosophy, and that is why no Catholic figure can speak it out loud, instead merely dropping hints and obscure references about human dignity.

But what is dignified about being moved hither and yon based on sliding wage scales and the needs of oligarchs?  Where is the dignity in convincing a culture not to reproduce naturally and then replacing them with an alien one of (temporarily) greater fecundity?  What is the human cost in this dollar transactions?

This is why I cannot take the bishops seriously.  Their inability to articulate a logical and moral solution to this problem is a grave scandal.

Watching Baz Luhrmann's Moulin Rouge is something of a Valentine's Day tradition at Chateau Lloyd.  The film came out around the time we were married, is quite fun and creative, and we bought the DVD shortly after our second child was born, so there are many happy memories associated with it.

As the years have passed, however, we've watched it with a more critical eye, noticing various gaffes but also subtleties that we overlooked.

There are some overt references to faith, usually in a humorous way, such as the sendup of "Like a Virgin," however there are some deeper elements in play.

Foremost among them is the salvation message for Satine and of course Christian (what's in a name!).  On the face of it, there isn't much of a story, because Satine is a prostitute, and even though she may care for Christian, one more (final) customer should be no big deal.  But, as "Like a Virgin" illustrates, she now sees the sinfulness of what she did.  She longs to be faithful to him, and yes, part of this is about control.

But it is also a rejection of the lie that sexual promiscuity is liberating.  The "Lady Marmalade" number at the beginning of the film glamorizes prostitution, with the revised lyrics emphasizing its benefits.

Satine's preference for a monogamous relationship can also be contrasted with "Roxanne," in which the titular character is not willing to give up her trade.

The point is that even generally secular films used to have conventionally religious morality in them.  It is difficult to imagine such a film now because Hollywood is determined to push both sexual deviancy and non-monogamy.  Two decades ago, it was still possible to view homosexuality (which is briefly shown or touched upon several times in the film) as deviant and decadent.  

Is Moulin Rouge as Catholic as The Crow?  Of course not.  But in addition to the romance arc, there is also the sense of guardianship over Satine, evidenced by Chocolat repeated coming to her aid in the manner of a guardian angel.

Recent revelations regarding American governmental expenditures have highlighted a long-running concerns among religious people, and Catholics in particular: what is the moral price for getting state funding?

It has long been reported in Catholic media that Catholic charities have been willing to violate Church teachings in exchange for government cash, but the stoppage of funding through USAID has highlighted the problem.  The bishops may lament the result layoffs, but the laity want to know how much was skimmed off the top and what exactly was done with the money.

Liberal Catholics refuse to confront the problem directly, instead claiming dubious moral authority based on selective use of the Scriptures.  Setting aside their hypocrisy in using proof texts regarding immigration but forgetting them when it comes to sexual morality and the culture of life, there is simply no excuse for accepting the sinful strings attached the money.

What used to be the mainstream press is running interference for them, but as the recent election showed, only a minority of people rely on that for information.  The most engaged Catholics - the ones most likely to donate - use independent media and online newsletters, and these organs have been fiercely critical of the Church's leadership.  Put simply, taking taxpayer funds is making a Faustian bargain.  In the first place, it corrupts the moral authority of the Church by compelling violations of doctrine, such as funding birth control, abortion, sodomite pride and legitimizing unlimited migration, including violent criminals.

It also enervates the laity, teaching them that tithing is not necessary because the government is picking up the check.

Again, the usual arguments are being trotted out about 'greater good' and being pragmatic, but the looming shutdown of USAID has indicated that the promised gain sometimes doesn't show up, just the sin.

This has also kicked of a needed debate about Catholic theology regarding the hierarchy of love and the odd modern need to help strangers while neglecting family.  I am not the only one noticing that my parish and diocesan newsletters regularly point to critical shortages for the local food bank while also noting how many foreigners - almost certainly here illegally - are being supported.

As anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of human behavior could point out, you get more of what you pay for, so the Catholic Church's charities are creating incentives for lawbreaking that creates significant costs for the faithful.  While some allege some sort of sinister long game, I think it's a combination of misguided sentiment and good old fashioned bureaucratic empire building.

This episode has echoes of the collapse of the Catholic Church in Europe, particularly in Germany, where the cozy Church-state relationship has cratered Mass attendance but provided lucrative careers in charities that for the moment are flush with cash.  In the long term, however, both are doomed to weaken, and this knowledge is probably why the German clergy are so determined to mimic their Protestant neighbors, despite the obvious fact that they are in even worse shape.

At its core, the problem is that much of the Church leadership has lost the plot.  They have forgotten that their mission is to save souls, and feeding the hungry and clothing the poor are but a means to that end.  By becoming complicit in sin, the whole point of the exercise is lost.

Posting has been light because I was busy finishing off Graham Greene's The Power and the Glory.  It is an absorbing story set during the period of Catholic persecution in Mexico, which led to the Cristero War.

Greene is vague on the details, giving only the most cursory references to time, geography and even characters.  Indeed, the primary character is a troubled Catholic priest with no name - he refers to himself as 'a whiskey priest,' a reference to his alcoholism.  He has also fathered a daughter, and in ordinary times, he would be a figure of ridicule and scorn, but against his will, he is seen as a heroic figure by the faithful who gratefully accept the sacraments from him.

I have to admit that I would have gotten more out of it if I simply read it as any other book, but instead, I found myself analyzing Greene's writing style, dialog, description, plot points and such.  I was therefore unsurprised by some of the plot twists, but Greene's ending was both surprising and satisfying.

Modern writing seems sterile, most juvenile genres, perhaps because people didn't have the wide experiences of travel, war, revolution and of course faith, as Greene did.  The West has been aggressively secularized, and a classic example is how The Force, which was mysterious and spiritual was redefined as a function of biology in the Star Wars prequels (another reason why I hate them).

Greene, like Evelyn Waugh, puts religion squarely in his stories, yet at the same time is not afraid to mock the hypocrisies  of its practitioners.  I picked up a handful of cheap paperbacks by Greene, and will continue to read through them.  They are only a couple of hundred pages, which is refreshing given all the door stoppers I've been reading over the past couple of years.

Having chugged through the James Bond franchise over the last few weeks, I feel comfortable saying that Pierce Brosnan has a credible claim at being the best 007.

Timothy Dalton made a good tough guy, but he was almost completely lacking in charm.  Brosnan is awash in charm, and carries himself with a breezy reserve that hints at mystery, yet he can also pull of a cold rage.  The tank chase scene in Goldeneye derives much of its entertainment power in Brosnan's amused yet serious expression.  He's serious, but also knows that the whole scenario if absurd.  That kind of perspective is what makes him a credible secret agent.

That's particularly important because Bond requires the actor to not only be a good liar, but allow him to convey he knows he is lying and doesn't care.

As for the plot of Goldeneye, it is very much rooted in its time, which makes it one of the best of the series.  The bitter holdouts of the Soviet regime, Western retrenchment and even the feminization of the intelligence service makes it one of the more compelling stories.

Posting has been light this week because my grandkids have discovered the Candyland game I got them for Christmas.

On the blessed morning, it got lost in the shuffle of new toys, but the weather precluding outdoor activity, games are a welcome distraction.

Already, we're experiencing some developmental growth, as the kids learn the winning is great, losing is said, and it's not nice to accuse someone of cheating.

Much of society's problems stem from people who are both poor winners and sore losers.  Participation trophies have much to answer for.

Candyland is interesting because it is so arbitrary.  It is won and lost on a random card loss, so there's not much one can do to facilitate victory.  That being said there is an optional rule allowing the players to draw two cards, and choose which one they want to use, significantly increasing their control over the outcome.  I've not yet used this, but fully intend to.  I'm assuming this was a Gen X innovation because we are truly the Gamer Generation.

I'm continuing to work through my James Bond dvd boxed set, and have now finished the Timothy Dalton era.  I like Dalton as an actor, but he's clearly not cut out to be Bond.  He's tough enough, but has zero charm.  

That's fine for some films, and he's got a tough guy aura, which some women may find attractive, but he's better as an assassin or villain than a hero.  He just doesn't come off as able to pull off Bond-level deception, breezily lying about who he is.

And the movies convey this.  The Living Daylights is pretty dull, clearly an attempt to tone down some of the excesses of the Roger Moore period (Moonraker comes to mind).  The problem is that the "grim, gritty" take is not much fun to watch, and it's undermined by the usual gadgetry.

License to Kill is more of a return to form, but again, it's a revenge film, not a spy picture.  Dalton does a casino scene so he can meet the villain, but the deception is really short-lived.  I like the return of Bond babes in slinky outfits, and I thought the idea of Bond stealing a bunch of cartel cash and living his best life with it would have made a full movie, rather than just a couple of scenes.  Cut out the whole Felix Leiter bit, and just do that, which would be fun.

Basically, do the season cliffhanger from Miami Vice, where Sonny Crockett loses himself in his gangster alter ego.  Having a British dude become a drug lord would be great.

Or could be, if you had someone other than Dalton doing it.

Recently, I've been getting some inquiries about why I chose to use the term "Yard Sign Calvinism" to describe the moral framework of woke leftists.   I coined the phrase about three years ago, and used it  describe the kind of people who use yard signs to signal their moral superiority over the rest of us.  These have a variety of catch phrases, but of particular note is the "We believe" secular credo loaded with phrases like "love is love," and "science is real."

The emergence of these yard signs pushed me further into the realization that people are not really motivated by politics - that is to say policy decisions and their real-world impact - but by faith, and though they may claim otherwise, secular materialists absolutely have a religion.

Thus, the key to understanding (and predicting) their behavior was to understand their theology, not through their tangled, illogical and contradictory policy positions.   Using this lens, one sees their moral framework as a Christian heresy rather than a cohesive political/economic program.

If it is a heresy, what are its features?   This post will answer that question.

For one thing, it is all about moral superiority.  Yard Sign Calvinists are just better than you, in every way.  They're so good they have to let the world know.  It's not enough for them to donate heroic amounts of money or volunteer at a soup kitchen, that takes actual effort.  The yard sign does all the work necessary.

Theologically speaking, this very closely resembles the Elect of Calvinist doctrine.  Those who aren't of the Elect, are governed by the doctrine of Utter Depravity, deserving neither mercy, or even respect.  This is why the Elect treat everyone else with such utter disdain.  It also explains why there are two sets of rules - one for them, and one for everyone else.  Thus, one of the Elect harassing someone online for a meme, trying to get them fired, or even driving them to suicide always has a clear conscience.  They may not phrase it that way, but they feel they are doing the Lord's work.  Often they'll claim it is karma.

However, the same tactics used against them are vile, evil, horrific because they are Good People.  Bad things shouldn't happen to Good People, and they get really upset when they do.

This is why I use the term  Yard Sign Calvinists - by their yard signs they are saved.  They also believe in Justification by Rage Alone instead of grace.  They don't really experience grace as Christians do.  For them the use of power is their chief source of pleasure.  That is why this is also a demonic faith, fueled by pride (the signs they display for social status), wrath and envy.

Only a Yard Sign Calvinist would live in a 3,500-square-foot home with two SUVs in the driveway while keeping a "Climate Change Now" sign in the yard.

Now let's look at an actual Calvinist apologetic and see whether there is any alignment with their beliefs.

They have a nifty (naturally Dutch-centric) acronym to capture their Five Graces:  TULIP, which stands for Total Depravity, Unconditional Election, Limited Atonement, Irresistible Grace and Perseverance.  

I'll let them speak for themselves:

Total depravity says that we are not just sick, but we are dead in our sins, in our trespasses, and there’s nothing that we can do in and of ourselves to procure our salvation.

Unconditional election says that before the foundation of the world, before we were born, before there even was a creation, God in his own immutable decree determined who would be saved—that he elected. He chose those who would by faith come to him and this choice was not based on foreseen faith—not just God putting in the tape to see what we would do millennia later—but based on his own good will and purposes he chose us.

Limited Atonement, or sometimes called Particular Redemption, means that the extent of Christ’s work on the cross—insofar as it was a saving work to save sinners—is for the elect. That Christ died as a substitutionary sacrifice for the elect only. So the extent of the atonement is limited in that way.

Irresistible Grace means that God sovereignly, supernaturally, irresistibly by his Spirit, of his own accord and not cooperating with us—so it’s monergistic not synergistic; that is, he’s the only one working, mono—saves us and causes us to be born again and implants within us the faith to believe.

And then finally the P is that God will work out in all of his chosen ones, in all of those who are truly justified, that they will persevere to the end and will ultimately be glorified.

To me, this sounds a lot like how the yard sign virtue-signalers think.  They are the Elect, Good People chose because of who they are.  Maybe not by God, but by the Goddess, or karma, or whatever.  They also believe that everyone else is irredeemable, so they don't even try to convert them.

It's interesting that in the discussion below, the presenters go out of their way to say that Calvinism seems to contradict evangelization because if God picked the winners and losers before time, what good will missionaries do?  They don't really have a strong answer to that, which is interesting, and they admit that a number of Calvinists believe that.

Limited Atonement also rolls into this, because to the extent that they may believe in God, they love it when their enemies suffer from natural disasters.  Hurricanes wrecking the Bible Belt fills them with glee and is proof that the depraved are suffering and getting no grace from God.  (The atheists wing will ask "where is your sky god now?")

Irresistible Grace and Perseverance reinforce the Unconditional Election doctrine by guaranteeing that the Elect will be saved.  They are going to heaven, no matter what they do.  This is why there is such a wide disconnect between their stated goals and the results of their policies and actions.  It doesn't matter whether gun control lowers crime, and if it produces massive violence, well, their intentions were pure, and they're still Elect.  

Indeed, every policy is the Right Thing To Do whether or not it works.

And yes, they can seamlessly transition from calling for civility and respect in one breath to damning everyone they disagree with in the next.  The same people whose signs read "no human is illegal" also want their political opponents thrown in prison for life.  

Even my kids get it, noting that houses with "Hate Has No Home Here" would likely fail the test if a someone wearing a MAGA hat knocked on the door.

This is the part where I make the obvious statement: no, these people are not actual Calvinists.  They are likely entirely ignorant of all of this, but the Puritan belief system is nevertheless deeply embedded in American culture.

Calvinism's greatest strength is the feeling of self-esteem and individual license it offers.  Once you realize you are of the Elect, you can do anything you want.

All religions are prone to individual scandals, but I think it fascinating that the greatest Reform theologian of the 20th Century, Karl Barth, openly kept a mistress in his home for decades.  She was also his secretary, so necessary for his work, which justified his unrepentant adultery.  Also important - none of his colleagues ever called him out on it.  Only decades after his death was the truth revealed.

Barth's actions were the logical end of Calvinism.  One of the catalysts for writing this post was a debate with a Calvinist, and when I remarked that I was but a wretched sinner, he said that those who have true grace no longer sin.  When challenged on this, he said that their actions may resemble sin, but are now sanctified, which sounds a lot like Barth having a mistress but it being no longer sinful because of his grace.

I think the most powerful argument against Calvinism is its fruit.  Or rather, the lack thereof.  The birthplace of Calvinism and one of the most staunchly Calvinist principalities - Switzerland and the Netherland, respectively - have both embraced the modernist culture of death.  The Dutch are some of the most decadent people in Europe, and so loathe their culture and faith that they have invited waves of Muslim migrants into their cities.  The ancient cathedrals - stolen from the Catholic Church - are now mere museums.

The Scottish Presbyterians have likewise collapsed into schism and degeneracy.  Scotland itself is a nihilist wasteland.

Calvinism's zenith was shortly after its foundation, when it could define itself against both the Church and rival denominations, but its evangelization has been chiefly through migration and modern Calvinists struggle to raise their young people in the faith.  I looked at the web page for Calvin University (formerly Calvin College), located an hour west of here, it while it claims to have a 100% Christian faculty, the "about" page has the usual diversity nonsense and brags about minority enrollment. 

This is not particularly good fruit.

Calvinist can hate on me if they like, but I suggest they take the label in stride.  Calvinism is a dying faith, and Yard Sign Calvinism is at least an opportunity to explain the "true" version of their religion.