We in the West are living in the midst of a jihad, and most of us don’t even realize it — because it’s a brand of jihad that’s barely a generation old. Islam divides the world into two parts. The part governed by sharia, or Islamic law, is called the Dar al-Islam, or House of Submission. Everything else is the Dar al-Harb, or House of War. It’s called the House of War because it, too, according to the Koran, is destined to be governed by sharia, and it will take war — holy war, jihad — to bring it into the House of Submission.

— Bruce Bawer, Surrender (2009)

Note: While certainly no ally of traditionalists and conservatives, Bawer certainly got this right. But don't take his or my word for it, read it for yourself in Reliance of the Traveler, a classic interpretation of Sharia Law. I'm glad to lend my copy to the curious. Do the work. Read primary sources, not the news.

#history #politics #theology

“On the coming of evening, I return to my house and enter my study; and at the door I take off the day's clothing, covered with mud and dust, and put on garments regal and courtly; and reclothed appropriately, I enter the ancient courts of ancient men, where, received by them with affection, I feed on that food which only is mine and which I was born for, where I am not ashamed to speak with them and to ask them the reason for their actions; and they in their kindness answer me; and for four hours of time I do not feel boredom, I forget every trouble, I do not dread poverty, I am not frightened by death; entirely I give myself over to them.”

Wow—here is a man who loved his books! Oh, that we spent a fraction of this time and had an ounce of his enthusiasm toward engaging the greatest minds of history! We would be very rich, indeed!

(Letter from Machiavelli to Francesco Vettori)

#history #reading

Fauci, and Faucism, represented the apotheosis of what the managerial/academic/journo class desires: An excuse for sweeping power, based on (alleged) expertise, in which they could ride roughshod over those stupid proles and flyover people while preening about the allegedly superior moral and intellectual qualities that justify their rule.

Then it turned out that they were wrong about nearly everything and — as Fauci’s diaries demonstrate — knew it at the time, at least at the top.

— Glenn Harland Reynolds (here)

Is anyone shocked to find out from his diaries that Anthony Fauci is a self-absorbed megalomaniac who gloried in the attention and praises heaped upon him during the pandemic? Of course not. He is a prime example of the Luciferian passions of pride and vainglory and the damage they will do if unchecked.

Here's an interesting take on the self-proclaimed American elites as well as a personal reaction from one of their followers that will also shock no one but which serves to illustrate our depravity and the increasingly bitter divide in America.

#history #politics

The editor of this anthology, who took part and was wounded in the last war to end war, hates war and hates all the politicians whose mismanagement, gullibility, cupidity, selfishness and ambition brought on this present war and made it inevitable. But once we have a war there is only one thing to do. It must be won. For defeat brings worse things than any that can ever happen in a war.

Regardless of how this war was brought on, step by step, in the Democracies’ betrayal of the only countries that fought or were ready to fight to prevent it, there is only one thing now to do. We must win it. We must win it at all costs and as soon as possible. We must win it never forgetting what we are fighting for, in order that while we are fighting Fascism we do not slip into the ideas and ideals of Fascism.

For many years you heard American people speak who admired Mussolini because he made the trains run on time in Italy. It never seemed to occur to them that we made the trains run on time in America without Fascism.

We can fight a total war without becoming totalitarians if we do not stand on our mistakes to try and cover them; our military; our political and our naval mistakes; and learn from the winners; rather than copy the methods of the losers because they have been at the business of losing for so long.

The Germans are not successful because they are supermen. They are simply practical professionals in war who have abandoned all the old theories and shibboleths which had accumulated to such a point that military thought had completely stagnated, and who have developed the practical use of weapons and tactics to the highest point of common sense that has ever been reached. It is at that point that we can take over if no dead hand of last-war thinking lies on the high command; and we can thank the enemy for having done all this preliminary work for us.

— Ernest Hemingway, editor, Men At War, 1942

#Hemingway #history #quotes

Many are cynical and discouraged about the future of America. I used to be, though I am not now. But we must no longer be complacent. I have realized that what our Founding Fathers struggled to establish, we must similarly struggle to maintain. Entropy, entitlement, historical amnesia, and indifference threaten our blessed inheritance as much as Socialism, division, and foreign threats. Ours is the time to re-learn from books and put into practice through political involvement before we have to re-learn from suffering and put into practice through arms.

Read Longfellow's words, then read them again, then re-read the Declaration, and have a blessed Independence Day, America!

Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State! Sail on, O Union, strong and great! Humanity with all its fears, With all the hopes of future years, Is hanging breathless on thy fate! We know what Master laid thy keel, What Workmen wrought thy ribs of steel, Who made each mast, and sail, and rope, What anvils rang, what hammers beat, In what a forge and what a heat Were shaped the anchors of thy hope! Fear not each sudden sound and shock, 'T is of the wave and not the rock; 'T is but the flapping of the sail, And not a rent made by the gale! In spite of rock and tempest's roar, In spite of false lights on the shore, Sail on, nor fear to breast the sea! Our hearts, our hopes, are all with thee, Our hearts, our hopes, our prayers, our tears, Our faith triumphant o'er our fears, Are all with thee, — are all with thee!

#culture #history #politics

In America, you were generally a citizen if you were born here and this was your home. The legal word for home was domicile. The concepts were so linked as to be taken as effectively synonymous at time...Citizens were not the people who were temporarily passing through a territory or who happened to be born within it. Citizens were the permanent members of the body politic—the people whose roots were in a place, who called that place home, and who would, if necessary, go to war for that place...

The Court’s decision to hold the Citizenship Order facially (i.e., always) unconstitutional, in other words, makes it unlawful for the President to enforce the Order against a single person. He cannot enforce the Order against a child of an alien enemy or a child of a foreign spy. He cannot even enforce the Order against children who are raised in foreign countries, join foreign armies, and fight wars against the United States. The Court, without considering any of these individual circumstances, holds unconstitutional the application of the Citizenship Order in all of them.

In my view, the Citizenship Order is not facially unconstitutional. The Order is consistent with the original meaning of the Citizenship Clause, at least insofar as it applies to children born to parents, here lawfully or unlawfully, who are not domiciled in the United States. The Citizenship Clause was enacted for people who were born in this country and called it home. It was enacted for freed slaves such as Dred Scott, who had “a domicil” here and therefore were entitled to sue as citizens. It was enacted for men such as Frederick Douglass, who demanded citizenship “not as aliens nor as exiles,” but as “Americans.” Its authors and supporters promised, over and over again, that it would exclude the children of “persons temporarily resident” here, whom “we would have no right to make citizens.” In Senator Trumbull’s words: “What do we mean by ‘subject to the jurisdiction of the United States?’ Not owing allegiance to anybody else. That is what it means.” And, for decades after ratification, it was interpreted by all three branches of Government and by a wide range of legal authorities to be limited to people who were already Americans.

— Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, dissenting opinion, Trump v. Barbara

This is one of the most important decisions in the history of the Court, and in my judgment, the Court has made a serious mistake. As interpreted by the Court today, the Fourteenth Amendment confers citizenship on virtually everyone who happens to be born in this country, including the children of “birth tourists,” women who come here solely for the purpose of giving birth to a child and then promptly return home. Careful analysis of the text of the Fourteenth Amendment and the process that led to its adoption shows that it does not degrade the concept of United States citizenship in this way. Instead, the Fourteenth Amendment confers citizenship on only those children who, at birth, owe allegiance solely to this country...

According to the Court, the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause codified the British rule of birthright subjecthood with only one new exception, which was needed to accommodate the unique status of American Indians. That is a curious claim, and it is ironic that the Court should embrace it only days before we celebrate the 250th anniversary of our Declaration of Independence, which emphatically renounced the foundation on which the British rule rested. That rule did not concern “citizenship.” There was no such thing as a “citizen” of England, Scotland, or Ireland. The inhabitants of the British Isles were the King’s “subjects.”

— Supreme Court Associate Justice Samuel Alito, dissenting opinion, Trump v. Barbara

If you're interested—and I daresay you should be—read the entire decision and opinions here.

#history #politics

Now in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. And having come in, the angel said to her, “Rejoice, highly favored one, the Lord is with you; blessed are you among women!”
But when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and considered what manner of greeting this was. Then the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call His name JESUS. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David. And He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there will be no end.” Then Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I do not know a man?”
And the angel answered and said to her, ”The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God. Now indeed, Elizabeth your relative has also conceived a son in her old age; and this is now the sixth month for her who was called barren. For with God nothing will be impossible.”
Then Mary said, “Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her.

The Western Church celebrates this announcement on March 25th, nine months before we celebrate Christmas. It is a blip of celebration in the otherwise austere season of Lent.

If you're interested in the history of how this date came to be, as well as how December 25th came to be celebrated as the Nativity of Christ (hint, it's NOT because of pagan holidays), check out Pr. Peters post today. As usual, it's gold.

Here's the historic collect (prayer) of the day for today's celebration:

We beseech thee, O Lord, pour thy grace into our hearts; that, as we have known the incarnation of thy Son Jesus Christ by the message of an Angel, so by his cross and passion we may be brought unto the glory of his resurrection; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Merry early Christmas!

#history #theology #worship

War must be, while we defend our lives against a destroyer who would devour all; but I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend.

J.R.R. Tolkien

#history #politics #quotes #Tolkien

This is NOT the Just War Tradition in practice. This is NOT how this works. It's simply not.

At best, this most certainly would violate the jus in bello tenets of distinction, proportionality, and military necessity. At worst, the United States would abdicate any claim to moral authority among the nation.

Clearly the regime in Iran is demonic and horrid, one of the worst in the world; however, from a Christian perspective all is NOT fair in love and war. It never has been. These are not the tactics of the United States of America. These are not the tactics of a nation behaving with honor. These are the tactics of treachery. These are the tactics of the ungodly.

You cannot rationalize this approach under any historic Christian understanding of the Just War Tradition. It is inexcusable. God, save us.

#history #politics #theology

— Davy Crockett

A blessed 190th Alamo Day to y'all.

#history #quotes