Many years I post a resolution thread, particularly with those for other people, that being a type of frankly snarky satire. I sometimes note some for myself as well.
This year I haven't posted anything.
The grimness of 2023 has a lot to do with that. On a professional note, and by all externals, I had a fairly good year last year. Economically, it went well, in spite of being knocked out for surgery. But surgery and health wise it was really tough. So I haven't been in the mood for that.
I am one of those people who do resolutions, and looking back on them, I'm also one of those people who typically fail at them. That's not a reason to try, however. And I've had enough in the way of shocks and major setbacks over the year not to look at life in 2023 as sort of ending me to the penalty box. So here's at it.
Rather than set resolutions, and I know generally what mine would be anyhow, I'm instead going to note a dedication, which is a form of resolution. And that would be Honesty and Authenticity. I'm tired of the dishonest and unauthentic.
I believe, as part of this overall, that dishonest and unauthentic behavior and actions are responsible for almost all of the problems our society faces right now, and I need to reflect that myself. Casting a wide net, almost all of our personal problems, and our national, and international ones, are due to dishonesty and inauthenticity.
Not that the honest and authentic win any prizes of any kind with people. People like to be told lies that they agree with to support their own dishonest beliefs, wants and behaviors. And people like fake too.
But deep down, that doesn't work.
It's not as if I've been living a dishonest and inauthentic life. But most of us make a lot of mental compromises to get along in daily life this way. It's really not good for anything.
I don't do this every year, and usually when I have, it's been tongue in cheek.
This will try to be, partially, but this one is more serious than most. Indeed, for the most part, there's no jest in this at all, and I'm going to do it in a different format, partially for that reason.
Donald Trump need to retire and go away.
Based on something I read the other day, in his personal life he nearly has. As the limelight fades away, he's spending a lot of his time at a nearby golf course he owns, rather than at Mar-a-Lago.
Even Theodore Roosevelt, the Old Lion, reached a point where he really didn't care about politics anymore, and that included his very last run for office. The fire had gone out. It'd dangerous to compare Roosevelt, who was a highly admirable man, to Trump, who isn't, but that seems to be happening.
Reportedly Trump's favorite film is Sunset Boulevard, which I've never seen, but which is reportedly a masterpiece about a fading silent film movie star. Trump, according to the article I read, will rarely pay any attention to anything, including films, but he loves Sunset Boulevard and will sit through it even after having seen it a zillion times.
That tells us something.
Gracefully fading away is hard to do. Truman did it, I'd note. Jimmy Carter seems to have done it. Douglas MacArthur did it, and the odds were against it.
Of course, Trump's problem is that he's disgraced himself and soiled his legacy.
Anyhow, he really ought to simply keep making that golf course trip and leave everyone alone, for the good of the country, and for the good of what little dignity he has left.
I noticed this morning that Elsie Stefanik is taking all sorts of flak due to a Washington Post expose. There's a lesson to be learned here, but it's probably too late for her to benefit from it. She could still learn from it.
Elon Musk needs to go back to South Africa, and whatever immigration loophole that was exploited to allow him to come in to the country and take up U.S. citizenship needs to be examined.
I can't think of a single qualification that Musk may have legally met to enter this country permanently. Somebody ought to look into that, and if he really didn't meet it, his citizenship should be revoked as a fraud and whatever person assisted this process looked into. And I feel the same way for all of the entertainment figures that hang around in this country as well. Go back.
Whatever weird, weird, loophole in our immigration system let Musk come in needs to be fixed. South Africa can use him. Go home, Elon.
Harriet Hageman and Chuck Gray won their elections, fair and square, but based upon the lie that something was wrong with the last election.
Now that they're in office, they have a lot to make up for, given that.
One thing they both can do is stop feeding the bogus rage machine. The other thing they ought to do is to admit that times are changing and the concept of hanging on to the 1970s economy, which we've only had in this state for the last 50 years, not forever, is dying.
Hageman, also, who is no dummy, ought to do some serious introspection before raising her right hand, once again, and swearing to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. She's done that at least once, and yet she was willing, although not at first, to boost a lie in favor of somebody who was willing to, and is stilling willing to, usurp that same Constitution. Gray probably has taken a similar oath upon becoming a legislature, but I don't know him, and I frankly hold him to a lesser standard.
Hageman when a large number of her fellow bar members reminded her of her duty to tell the truth advanced a really wild fantasy regarding that. If she believed that, she needs to spend about a week in the hills, perhaps with Thoreau, or perhaps with the Book of Tobit. It'd do her good.
The Grand Old Party in Wyoming needs a serious shake up, I'd note, but it's not going to happen. The Democratic Party of Wyoming needs one as well. At this point, that's only going to come through Independents, I'm afraid. My Resolution, therefore, is for them. I hope, and hope they resolve, to take over the state's politics. The Democrats have become so mired in left wing goofiness, there's nearly no saving them.
Interestingly, the Libertarian Party, nationally, recently seems to have taken a step to the middle. Maybe there's hope for them yet.
There's a huge percentage of the country that need to resolve that science is not its enemy, and Newsmax is not the place to get the news. If the news just fuels your preformed beliefs and, simultaneously, makes you mad, you need to get your news somewhere else. Actually, what you need to do, is get the news.
Vladimir Putin needs to go to confession, and then go to a monastery. I'm not joking. Russia needs to join the modern, democratic, world. The Russian Orthodox Church needs to end its schism with the rest of the Orthodox, and the Eastern Orthodox need to end their schism with Rome. This has gone on too long. The German Catholic Bishops, for their part, need to end their drift into wherever they are going.
Something needs to be done regarding the condition giving rise to an epic level of attempted migration into the United States. If conditions in Central America are that bad, we need to figure out why, and do something about it immediately.
In large part, in many ways, we all need to look forward, by looking back. Being perpetually angry doesn't serve any interest at all. Pretending it's 1973 won't either. Turning to grifters, caudillos, snake oil salesmen, and those selling anger won't work.
We all know that. It's doing something about it that seemingly is difficult. But once we get moving, momentum is a force until itself.
Speaking of 1973, left wing American economists like Robert Reich need to realize that they continually espouse another economic option, and then pull back to the current one. They're basically in the position of being a concerned stranger walking up to a desperate drunk in a bar, giving him a temperance lecture, and then suggesting he switch to beer. That's not going to cut it in an economy that truly needs adjusting.
On a minor notes, would people on Twitter stop using this stupid cartoon for points they're trying to make:
There are all sorts of version of this, and they're all hideous and bad. Whatever you think you are trying to prove this way, you are not.
An addendum.
Let's start 2023 with some basic consensus on proved things. If we do, we'll have a productive year.
If we don't, it suggests that we really prefer blinding ourselves to truth and arguing for sport/self-satisfaction.
And that would certainly merit a sense of pessimism.
Okay, first of all, some lingering political things.
Donald Trump lost the election. Believe whatever you want about who should have one, whether the electoral college makes any sense, whether we're a republic or democracy (as if the two are mutually exclusive), but he lost.
There's no point in arguing otherwise, unless you just like arguing, much like the fellow I know who insists the Women's NBA "isn't a sport". Why, well because a 50-year-old overweight guy who couldn't play basketball against a junior high team can safely take that position for self-satisfaction. Same here. Trump lost, and arguing that he won at this point is really just insisting the opposite isn't true.
Vaccinations are safe. We really don't need to argue about this anymore, but we really don't need to be arguing about vaccinations in general.
Note that I didn't limit this to the COVID-19 vaccination. People out there who don't vaccinate their kids for things we haven't seen for years, only to have the kids get ill, are acting criminally. If there's one thing we have COVID-19 to thank for, and I don't believe it is, it's that it shut people up like Jenny McCarthy on this topic.
Let's resolve to follow the science on stuff, no matter how scary that may be, or how much that impacts our self interests, or our narcissistic desires. If that leads to "you know, what I want isn't okay", or "my own impulses aren't ordered", well, so be it.
Let's also resolve that the end point of being a human isn't to be a consumer.
Let's completely skip altering our natures this year. Whether that's dying our hair some color it isn't, or inflating our boobs, or changing our gender, or whatever.
Feel that you really want to be in touch with who you really are? Well, be who you really are, and that starts with the body nature gave you and all that means.
Face the basic fact that you are going to die. Hopefully not soon, but you will. And that's okay, as long as you are in the right place when you die. Eating the All Kale Diet won't stop it. Don't accelerate it, please, we need you around, but we need you who you are, and as part of us, as we really are.
Don't be mean. I've come to realize that there are certain people who revel in being mean. Don't be one of them. Don't take joy in other's suffering, or inflict it in them. Meanness, I'd note, is often masked in arrogance, or self-righteousness, or even ignorance.
Don't follow the mean, either. If somebody seems perpetually pissed off, there's something wrong in that.
Cheerfulness strengthens the heart and makes us persevere in a good life; wherefore the servant of God ought always to be in good spirits.
This will be an unusual post for here, as I'm doing something unusual in general.
Most but not all years, I post a "Resolutions" thread on our companion blog, Lex Anteinternet. This started off, quite frankly, as being satirical in nature, but this year it's much less so. Satire is a delicate form of humor, often ineffectively done, and this past year hasn't been very funny, so there's not much that satire would really do, for the most part, other than be super snarky. Snark is almost never helpful.
Anyhow, this blog, which used to simply be a catalog of agrarian themed entries on Lex Anteinternet, has grown into its own a bit and now has a little original content, although not much. Anyhow, we're going to run this post independently, even though another Resolutions thread will already be up on Lex Anteinternet.
Well, two, actually.
Anyhow, this past two years, if anything, have been ones that have shown how Chesteron, Leopold and Abbey were quite right, even though they remain voices crying in the wilderness. The voices we've heard instead, most often that of an ex President and his hard core acolytes, haven't been helpful. Maybe it's time to drag out the Vanderbilt Agrarians, Chesteron, and Wendell Berry and see what they have to say.
Indeed, that will be our first resolution for agrarians, farmers, would be farmers, and just folks in general.
1. Check out Berry, Abbey, Leopold, or Chesterton
The current pack of yappers is offering little in the way of deep content, and a lot of what they have to say about anything is outright destructive. Every now and then something of value is stated, but it's hard to hear it in the general mess of things.
Let's be honest. Almost all of the current "we need to go in this direction" is at least a little bit misinformed. If you aren't grounded in what's real, any wind can blow you over.
Doing a little reading of some grounded folks would be a really good start in things.
And things be Wendell Berry, Edward Abbey, Aldo Leopold and G. K. Chesterton would be really good starts.
2. Cut out the citations to the "I’m a billionth generation farmer/rancher" in the wrong context, and don't support it when its made in the wrong context.
This is one of a couple of posts here that are really directed at a very narrow few, rather than the majority of ranchers.
Actually, it's not directed at ranchers at all, but rather at the rancher ex pats. Those who hail originally from the soil, but now no longer are working it. For those who descend from prior generations of ranchers and are still in it, the more power to you.
I've posted on this already, but it really doesn't matter if your great-great-grandfather broke the sod in Niobrara County in 1890 if that doesn't mean you are in agriculture today. And it doesn't make you royalty. And. . .
3. Knock off the "agriculture is a hard way to make a living" line
Now, I want to be careful here.
Agriculture is a hard way to make a living, because of economics.
What it isn't, however, is a hard way to live.
This has been on my mind, to the political year, anyhow, but it recally came into the forefront of my mind again recently listening to an episode of Wyoming: My 307. It was the one on ranching, which you can find here:
In it, it had a long session pondering "why do we do this?" which arrived at a very interesting conclusion, that being "it's a vocation".
I think there's something to that.
But, we ought to be careful thinking that somehow because we're out in nature, and nature is a bit rough, that we're suffering. Far from it.
I've been a lawyer, a solider, worked on drilling rigs, a writer and a stockman in what now amounts to a whopping 45 years of working (I started working for pay at age 13). So I think I know a little about work and what hard work is, and isn't. And what work is like for most people.
Somewhere at some point in time somebody fed a line of crap to agriculturalist that their work is uniquely difficult in an existential sense. Perhaps in a physical sense, that's somewhat true, but there's plenty of other dangerous physical work that puts you out in all kids of weather.
And most modern work is, quite frankly, utterly meaningless. Most Americans don't like their jobs, as no rational scientient mammal would like most of the jobs that now exist.
What agriculture isn't is something that makes you work more hours per day than other people, particularly professional people, in horrible conditions. Not even close, quite often. And the working conditions and nature of agriculture are far better than that for most other people. If you think that your job is somehow worse than a computer engineer in a cubicle, you are fooling yourselves massively.
Indeed, this sort of whining, and that's what it is, really needs to stop. It's self deceptive.
Indeed, its harmful it two ways. It's self-delusion and makes us think that, if we believe it, we are really working a lot harder than other people, when in fact that's just not true, and it also causes us to force children off the land for a better "town job" that won't be better.
Almost everything about life in the towns and cities is worse. We ought to realize that.
If you doubt it, leave the ranch or farm and go into town. You can't come back, and you'll regret you left. Pleantly of people will line up to take your place.
4. Having land doesn't make you "landed" nobility.
This, I'll note, is also directed at a narrow few, not the broader majority, of those in agriculture.
Something really disturbing has developed in the US over the past century in which those lucky enough to be born in to agriculture sometimes sort of regard themselves as petty nobility in a way. It expresses itself in all sorts of odd ways.
Now, I don't want to suggest this is common.
Most farmers and ranchers aren't this way at all. But you'll see examples of it where people in agriculture will express a degree of contempt, on rare occasion, about average people. It feeds into the thing above, in a reverse fashion, in that there's a sort of "we work hard for a living" without realizing that a lot of other people do as well.
I'll be frank that the last two items are sort of in reaction to a current political campaign. I'm not going to get into the pluses and minuses of the merits of any candidate, but something about the videos of the campaign really strike me the wrong way for their strong rancher pull. I'm tired of people appearing on political ads in cowboy hats arguing that you need to vote for somebody because they came from an agricultural family that knows what real values are. It's insulting.
5. Support getting people into agriculture.
The worst enemy of ranchers in the west are ranchers and by extension this is true about agriculture in general. Agriculturalist decry those who regard their units as big public parks, which they should, but at the same time they don't do anything to try to help average people get into agriculture.
The reason for that, in no small part, is that it would mean a big personal sacrifice. We could support legislation that made agriculture and agricultural land tied to actually working the land as your real and sole occupation, but we don't as that would massively depress the value of the land. It's that value that operates against us in the first place, as it means the Warren Buffets of the world become the only one who can afford the land.
We could pull this up by the root and cut it off at the head. If we really think we're special and the real examples of the common men, we should.
6. Think local and organize.
My entire life I've heard complaints about the midstream in agriculture. The price of beef goes up, and cattle on the hoof do too, and the very few packers there are reap the rewards. It's hard on consumers, and it's hard on ranchers.
I'm sure the same is true in other fields of agriculture as well.
Well, enough of that. We know it's unfair, so what we have to do is to replace the middle men with processors of our own. We could do it.
Indeed, some agricultural enterprises, like sugar, do in fact do just this. But it should expand. Co-ops for this purpose, organized to process for the member's benefits and not their own, would be ideal, and could more than compete with the big packers.
7. Think Agrarian
Modern agriculture suffers heavily from the worship of materialism that intruded heavily into the 20th Century and, along with it, specialization of everything. We in agriculture often hear of "monocultures", but we almost all do just that.
Our predecessors did this much less. Up into the mid 20th Century it was really rare to find ranches that didn't also farm a little bit, for the table, and every rancher hunted (often illegally) as well. Farmers were the same way. A wheat farmer in Kansas was a wheat farmer, but he was probably also taking some game with a shotgun and probably kept a few pigs for the table,, and so on.
We have the resources and could lead the say on that, and indeed, some do. But the real banner carriers on this sort of thing shouldn't be people in the "homestead" movement, who are mostly chopping up big parcels of land to the ultimate detriment of everyone.
8. Know who is your friend and who isn't.
This doesn't apply to everyone either, but I'm sometimes surprised how some in agriculture can be hostile, intentionally and unintentionally, to those who aren't, but who want to enjoy something on the land.
"No Trespassing" signs and "No Hunting" signs are signs to locals that they aren't welcome. Signs stating "This Land Leased To Outfitter" are the same thing, except they show that the lack of welcome has been monetized.
Bills to privatize wildlife are the ultimate acts of hostility. Falling in second are bills to transfer public lands into private hands.
We should realize that there are people who are genuinely hostile to agriculture. The local newspaper publishes op ed articles by members of an organization that definitely is. There are a lot more people who aren't in agriculture than who are, and we tend to forget that, as for most of us most of our friends are in it.
Given this, at some point we really risk public hostility. Shut access off to the land, and next thing you know you'll be seeing "tax ag land like other land" and things of that nature, and you are out of business and out of cash.
It doesn't really take that much to be friendly to people.
Likewise, for some reason those in agriculture often support entities and operations that are land destroying. I've never understood that, indeed as we'll often complain about the same entities if they're on our places.
9. Think really local.
None of us are here forever. Try to keep that place, and keep the familiy in it.
People do a lot of things for a lot of reasons, but every time I encounter somebody, and I do fairly frequently, who ends up telling me "I grew up on a ranch", and I find them working as a lawyer, doctor, accountant, or whatever, I think it's a tragedy. That shouldn't have had to happen.
The New Year's Resolutions thread that we just posted, originally started off as an annual satire thread. Whether its just me, or because levity seems to have evaporated from modern Western lives, this year's and the year before that have not been very amusing, and have been fairly serious.
Serious times, it seems.
This thread is somewhat in the nature of a series of resolutions, but it's not quite the same. So it has its own post. These are just things I'd like to see in 2022, or maybe hope to see. All hope, we are frequently reminded, is not dead. If we wish to see things happen, we need to hope for them.
So some hopes.
I hope to see in 2022 a real plan to deal with global warming and in the near term. By that I mean reverse it. It can be done, we're just not doing it in part because we seemingly can't grasp things that are long term and inconvenient. Well, it's time, and just proclaiming that it isn't occurring doesn't mean it isn't occurring. And even if it truly isn't, which seems completely contrary to what we now know about the climate, we don't really have the luxury of gambling on it.
I'd also like to see people take as sharp turn towards a more natural and less materialistic world right where they are. I don't want Californians relocating anywhere and buying up ag land. I don't want people from Ohio moving to Steamboat Springs.
I want people planting gardens where they are, getting out fishing, and hunting, where they are.
Also, I'm not opposed to travel by any means, but I'm personally opposed to the manufactured fun sort of travel. Let's just skip that entirely this year.
I'd like people to be authentic, I guess.
And on that, here again, a repeat:
2. Something old
It used to be the case, for some reason, brides were told they needed;
Something old
Something new.
Something borrowed
Something blue.
I don't know about that, but the entire society needs to try the first one, as we by and large don't know what works anymore. And by that, I mean something serious, and some things not so much.
What I more particularly mean is that everyone, and I'm serious about this, ought to look back prior to the Boomer generation and try something, and really try it, that your progenitors of that generation prior would have regarded as routine. Because this blog is directed at the faceless void, I don't know what that really means in your case.
In my own, that'd be pretty easy as my parents weren't Boomers. So for folks like me, I'd say go back one prior to that. I.e., if your parents were in the pre Boomer generation, look at least one back. If your parents are Boomers, look to the generation or generations prior to that.
And be at least partially serious.
Now, I know some people who think they've done this. Their great grandparents might avhe been immigrants from Poland, for example, so they've adopted Polish names for their newborn and they eat kielbasa on the Polish national holiday, whatever that is. And I in fact mean something sort of like taht. . . but more.
On the light side, that is what I mean. I don't care if you are a dedicated vegan. If your grandparents routinely had a hefty Sunday meal of roast beef, potatoes, and finished it off with coffee (and many people did just that), try it for a few weeks running.
Try it.
But beyond that, try something serious.
Did your grandparents always put in a garden? Put one in. Did one of them go fishing, and not in the weeny "catch and release" way, but in the "I'm eating that" way. Do it. Was one a farmer. . . think about farming if you can (which you probably can't, so put in a garden).
And beyond that.
Were your grand parents Italian immigrants and you think that you celebrate that heritage by having lasagna every now and then? You don't. Go to Mass for three months in a row. Were they Romanian? Well go to the Romanian Orthodox Church three months in a row or the Greek Orthodox or Byzantine Catholic one if you can't find one and see what that's like . . .seriously.
And are you living a life that your Italian grandmother would have regarded as an infamnia when she was 20. Well knock it and try to live like she did.
With all of this stuff, I think you'll find something. . . and something serious, real, and seriously real.
I'd really like to see the GOP become the nation's conservative party once again, and to get past Donald Trump, forever. I'd like to see the Democrats return to being a "liberal" party in the context of what that originally meant in Western history, rather than the social experimentation party.
As part of the latter, I'm not opposed to the Federal Government having a role, even a fairly extensive role, in American society, but I'd really like people to realize that money just doesn't flow out of a tap. People like Bernie Sanders who are comfortable with the opposite ought to really be sentenced to running an economically marginal business for the rest of their lives.
I'd like to see both parties also stop thinking that they can define the culture. This gets back into tradition and the democracy of the dead, but much about culture is more scientifically defined at the DNA level than we might imagine. This is essentially a conservative view, but you can't politically redefine human nature. You simply cannot. And, the definition of human contentment is neither getting to do whatever you want with your glands, or having ultimate personal liberty, or working for big bucks in a cubicle.
On the latter, we've been doing the capitalist uber experiment now for a little over a century. It doesn't seem to really be working out at the fundamental human nature level, and we ought to back way off on it. That means a smaller scale, less wealthy, and more local, world and society. So be it.
I'd like to see those people who use their background in agriculture as a selling point, as in "I come from three generations of ranchers" go on to say that they'll support finding a way to recreate what their ancestors benefitted from, that being a cheap and easy way, economically, for real people to get into agriculture.
I'd like to see those who supported now demonstrative falsehoods publically as part of a campaign of some sort to acknowledge where they were wrong, and why they advanced the falsehood. If they were just wrong, they can say so, but not saying anything is still saying too much. If they were simply lying, I'd like them to come clean on that.
4. Don't Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood
5. Right, Left and all points in between.
6. Listen to Science.
7. Learn Some History
8. Quite listening to celebrities.
9. Don't take any political view, or news story view, from Twitter.
10. Time to reassess late education.
11. First thing we do. . . .
12. Stop slandering everyone, including public figures you don't know.
Something Less Serious, which doesn't mean I don't mean it.
1. Enough with the tattoos already.
2. Try some real clothing
3. Skip the cartoon movies
4. Quit abusing the English language.
I'm tempted not post this, this year, as frankly 2021 wasn't great year in most ways.
Externally it probably should seem to be to me. I didn't get the Coronavirus and I got all three vaccinations. I.e., I'm boosted. So far, I've avoided the Omicron variant. I've stayed very busy on top of it.
Well, perhaps a bit too much. I didn't have hardly any big game season to speak of, for more than one reason. And I'm not completely acclimated to a six-day work week that's starting to intrude into seven. I'm not 28 years old and that sort of thing can't last forever.
And, for lots of reasons, the past year has been unsettling. Anyone who hasn't found the politics of the past year unsettling hasn't been paying any attention at all. Those who have been paying attention to the science news should find that unsettling. Things need to start happening, and by that we mean getting corrected, and quick.
Maybe I need to do some of that myself.
My profession definitely does.
This past year we saw lawyers, particularly jurists, rise to the occasion and stick with the law and the truth. The numerous lawsuits that were filed challenging the election were embarrassing to the profession, but the courts were not. People got a real display of judicial correctness and excellent judicial jurisprudence, even though in many instances they never understood it. The latter was evidenced by the "the courts never heard the evidence", which is besides the point completely on a case that completely lacks legal merit.
Lawyers themselves, however, didn't always rise to the occasion as it was clear that for at least awhile you could find some to maintain these claims. Having said that, many backed out of doing so, and by and large the profession acted correctly on the challenge it was presented. Perhaps more so than any other.
Less encouraging, however, has been the ongoing corruption of the civil litigation system which had declined enormously since the mid 20th Century. Something needs to be done to grossly reduce the vast number of civil suits that are brought. It will likely take the courts to do that.
More encouraging, in a way, last year saw a wedding and an engagement of some folks we know which was encouraging due to the decency, end even traditionalism, of everyone involved.
Anyhow, with all of that in mind, we'll do this the same way we did last year, with serious and not so serious resolutions.
Gravitas
1. Stop lying.
This is going to be an "off year" election year, which means that politics are going to be in full swing.
The past year, 2021, has featured political lies at a level in American politics which have not been seen for decades, or maybe ever.
People really need to knock it off.
St. Thomas Aquinas opined in the Summae Theologiae that all lying was sinful, and sometimes seriously so.
I answer that, A mortal sin is,
properly speaking, one that is contrary to charity whereby
the soul lives
in union with God,
as stated above (II-II:24:12; II-II:35:3).
Now a lie may
be contrary to charity in
three ways: first, in itself; secondly, in respect of the evil intended;
thirdly, accidentally.
A lie may be in itself contrary to charity by
reason of its false signification.
For if this be about divine things, it is contrary to the charity of God,
whose truth one
hides or corrupts by such a lie;
so that a lie of
this kind is opposed not only to the virtue of charity,
but also to the virtues of faith and
religion: wherefore it is a most grievous and a mortal sin.
If, however, the false signification
be about something the knowledge of
which affects a man's good,
for instance if it pertain to the perfection of science or to moral conduct, a lie of
this description inflicts an injury on one's neighbor, since it causes him
to have a false opinion,
wherefore it is contrary to charity,
as regards the love of our neighbor, and consequently is a mortal sin.
On the other hand, if the false opinion
engendered by the lie be about some matter the knowledge of
which is of no consequence, then the lie in question does no harm to one's
neighbor; for instance, if a person be
deceived as to some contingent particulars that do not concern him. Wherefore a lie of
this kind, considered in itself, is not a mortal sin.
As regards the end in view, a lie may
be contrary to charity,
through being told with the purpose of injuring God,
and this is always a mortal sin,
for it is opposed to religion; or in order to injure one's neighbor, in his person,
his possessions or his good name,
and this also is a mortal sin,
since it is a mortal sin to
injure one's neighbor, and one sins mortally
if one has merely the intention of
committing a mortal sin.
But if the end intended be not contrary to charity,
neither will the lie, considered under this aspect, be a mortal sin,
as in the case of a jocose lie, where some little pleasure is intended, or in
an officious lie, where the good also
of one's neighbor is intended. Accidentally a lie may be contrary to charity by
reason of scandal or
any other injury resulting therefrom: and thus again it will be a mortal sin,
for instance if a man were not deterred through scandal from
lying publicly.
Donald Trump did not win the 2020 election, and he didn't win the popular vote. . . ever. There was no conspiracy. Those who know that and maintain otherwise are lying. Those who self deceive themselves when they really know better are lying to themselves.
You can't fault everyone for believing lies. But you can fault those who tell lies.
2. Loyalty is not your Honor.
Right now there's a political advertisement running in which the theme is "Ride for the Brand".
Don't ride for the brand. Think for yourself.
Another way to summarize the "ride for the brand" thing, as currently being used in politics, is to state that Loyalty is my Honor, or in its original form Meine Ehre Heisst Treue. That was the motto of the SS.
Yeah, they were loyal, alright. That's the point.
There's something to be said for loyalty, of course. Loyalty to what's true. That doesn't mean being loyal to anyone one person but to truth and principals.
The first principal of democracy is loyalty to democracy itself. Both the 2020 vote desires and the liberal "we'll slam it through the courts" crowd are disloyal to it At least people who don't believe in the vote should, if nothing else, be honest about that.
FWIW, that "whole ride for the brand" think was never really as simple minded as people feeding it to the public as a slogan right now in the first place anyway. Most 19th Century cowhands were riding for themselves, and darned near what we'd regard today as independant contractors. They worked for whatever ranch they signed on with for part of the year, usually, unless they were a top hand that was actually hired all year long. Those guys, however, were usually taking part of their pay in cattle so they could start their own place.
Ride for the brand indeed.
3. Hold them Accountable.
It's common to say we should hold our politicians accountable, but in Wyoming we have the unique ability to do that.
Here soon people are going to be walking around the neighborhood campaigning for votes and some of them are going to tell lies, either because they believe them or because they are self deluding themselves. You can hold them accountable.
And some of these people you are going to occasionally see in places where their principals can be questioned. I don't mean to suggest bothering a politician in the grocery line at Ridleys, but if you see one standing there at Easter Mass in a few months, well . . .
4. Courtesy
Pundits have been declaring for some time that courteous discourse has been declining in American society, but over the past couple of years its declined at an epic rate.
Republicans on the far right who figure that their beliefs defined the GOP declare other Republicans "RINOS" and demand, in some instances, loyalty tests. Those of differing political views slam those who are their opposites. It's all just too much.
People quit listening when they are offended. Very few people have really evil or secret motives. Everything should be in the light, but burning the camp of the perceived enemy isn't that.
5. First Things
This year, an election year, would be a good year to be dedicated to First Things.
Every year would be.
First things probably means different things to different people, but here it'll mean this. It's time to apply the real principles that would lead to a just and sustainable society.
We've posted on them a lot, but they're summarized most of all by the Apostolic Faiths, which have no "health and wealth gospel". We've also typed in here the quotes from Edward Abbey and Aldo Leopold.
It's getting late in the day, as Cardinal Sara has reminded us. It's too late for judging where society goes based upon the local economy, your favorite lifestyle, and your own personal desires.
6. The reflection in the mirror
This past year we've seen, yet again, the cycle of a male actor behaving badly some time ago, a current accusation coming out, followed by the dogpile as it turns out that others knew it or they want to be associated with the virtuous.
Virtue is kind of an all in, or all out, sort of thing, as a rule. There are exceptions, but they usually involve a sort of spectacular late allegiance to it. We don't see those coming out of the entertainment industry.
The American entertainment industry has been a moral sewer for decades. We've posted over the past year about at least one Hollywood scandal from 1921, and we've probably posted on more than one.
Let's be blunt and honest, the entire "it was all consensual" thing, combined with that "I don't k now what I was thinking when I went to his apartment" think is no excuse. You were acting badly.
6. Bring back some standards.
This may directly relate to the item above in lots of ways, but we're now at the point where lots of basic standards have slipped so much it's a considerable problem.
We'll start with the law again. The entire spread of the UBE has been a disaster. It'd frankly be best if lawyers couldn't practice across jurisdictional boundaries at all, but if that must be allowed, make them take a state bar exam. A real one.
Maybe it's time to bring back some external standards as well, including dress standards. As somebody who frequently breaks them, that may seem like a surprising statement, but if "clothes make the man", maybe we'd be better made if this was the case.
Moral standards have really lapsed. People like to claim that this is a pendulum, but if it is, it's stuck somewhere in the 1970s and is fueled by self-delusion in all sorts of ways.
And, once again, perhaps we should quit basing standards solely on the corporate bottom line.
And, in nothing else, here's one final one:
7. Quit making things worse for everyone.
Some people are doing that. And what's more they probably know that.
A person basing everything on their own selfish demands isn't helping. If you are 100% convinced of all of your views, and completely unwilling to listen to anyone else, you probably have thinly developed opinions.
8. Succession
Finland has a PM in her 30s, and Argentina has a President now in his 30s.
Time marches on and talent vests in people irrespective of age. Some experiences go from relevancy to irrelevancy within our own lifetimes.
The time has really come for the Boomer Generation, and probably Generations Jones (which never had any power) to step into lessor roles. Death shouldn't be the only means of passing power and responsibility from one generation to another, but. . .
9. Democracy of the dead.
Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about.
G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy
Some Less Serious
This tread used to be only on this, but this past year have been so odd that it's hard for me to really think of things in this category.
1. Take a break from manning the ramparts.
This is going to be a repeat, but enough already on the enemy at the gates in everything.
One way societies fail is in reaction and fatigue. Sooner or later, the guy carrying the placard out on the sidewalk that says "the end is near" is going to be ignored.
2. Movements fail when people get sick and tired of their adherents basically screaming in the streets. Most people live busy lives and don't have the time or energy to engage in dire angst every day. Simply living is enough.
2. Visit the enemy camp.
This year in particular, it would be really helpful if all the dyed in the world adherents of various social philosophies actually visited their opponents a bit. And by that, I mean whomever they hate the most.
And I am using the word "hate" advisedly. It seems to me that many people right now really truly hate their opposites. It needs to stop, and there's no better way to do that than to really see what's up with those people. Maybe they'll be convinced by you, or maybe you'll moderate their opinion on them. Anyway, unless a person is just flat out afraid of testing their opinions, they ought to do this.
3. Bring back Kasie Hunt
NBC really blew it when they let Kasie Hunt go.
I still think she should be made the host of Meet The Press.
4. Chris Christie and Donna Brazile for the Oval Office.
I mean this, by the way.
And I don't care who would head the ticket. I'm okay with either.
And yes, I knwo that Christie is a Republican and Brazile a Democrat. But he's not a "hunt you down and save your left wing cats" Republican but a real conservative with an open mind, while she's not in the "let's host a new Internationale" Democrat and also has an open mind.
5. Stop it with the stupid sex themed films and television shows, Hollywood
This is not only immoral, it's now boring. It's not edgy, i'ts not progressive, its just exploitative and, given the ongoing "we're shocked, shocked to learn that an actor in a drama with the word "Sex" in it ran around having illicit sex" stories come up all the time, maybe somebody ought to connect the dots.
6. Use your name
I want people to resolve to quit using made up names. Stage names should be passe and their stupid. Lenard McKelvey, you are not Charleamange and the rest of your radio moniker is blasphemous. Nobody is really named Doja Cat. If you put stallions in your made up last name, you are bordering on cultural appropriation. Let's cut it out.
Some Repeats:
1. Something old
It used to be the case, for some reason, brides were told they needed;
Something old
Something new.
Something borrowed
Something blue.
I don't know about that, but the entire society needs to try the first one, as we by and large don't know what works anymore. And by that, I mean something serious, and some things not so much.
What I more particularly mean is that everyone, and I'm serious about this, ought to look back prior to the Boomer generation and try something, and really try it, that your progenitors of that generation prior would have regarded as routine. Because this blog is directed at the faceless void, I don't know what that really means in your case.
In my own, that'd be pretty easy as my parents weren't Boomers. So for folks like me, I'd say go back one prior to that. I.e., if your parents were in the pre Boomer generation, look at least one back. If your parents are Boomers, look to the generation or generations prior to that.
And be at least partially serious.
Now, I know some people who think they've done this. Their great grandparents might avhe been immigrants from Poland, for example, so they've adopted Polish names for their newborn and they eat kielbasa on the Polish national holiday, whatever that is. And I in fact mean something sort of like taht. . . but more.
On the light side, that is what I mean. I don't care if you are a dedicated vegan. If your grandparents routinely had a hefty Sunday meal of roast beef, potatoes, and finished it off with coffee (and many people did just that), try it for a few weeks running.
Try it.
But beyond that, try something serious.
Did your grandparents always put in a garden? Put one in. Did one of them go fishing, and not in the weeny "catch and release" way, but in the "I'm eating that" way. Do it. Was one a farmer. . . think about farming if you can (which you probably can't, so put in a garden).
And beyond that.
Were your grand parents Italian immigrants and you think that you celebrate that heritage by having lasagna every now and then? You don't. Go to Mass for three months in a row. Were they Romanian? Well go to the Romanian Orthodox Church three months in a row or the Greek Orthodox or Byzantine Catholic one if you can't find one and see what that's like . . .seriously.
And are you living a life that your Italian grandmother would have regarded as an infamnia when she was 20. Well knock it and try to live like she did.
With all of this stuff, I think you'll find something. . . and something serious, real, and seriously real.
2. Don't Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood
If you worked your entire life in Dayton, you owe the place something or at least you owe Ohio something. Don't pick up and move simply because you can when you retire your job at Amalgamated Amalgamated. If you hated Ohio, you should have left before then.
Okay, family ties, health, etc., all matter. And I don't have a problem with people moving from Craig to Ranger, or Riverton to Dubois, or Santa Fe to Taos. But we owe where we are from something and to have lived and worked in a region and then to pick up root when we retire and relocate does a double disservice. It deprives our community of what it gave us, both in resources and in knowledge, and it drops us in a place where we may very well be an economic and cultural menace.
If you retire from Giant Co in Illinois and then buy a farm in Nebraska as a hobby, some young farmer in Nebraska probably won't be able to get a start. If you wanted to be a farmer you should have tried it prior to that point. You get the picture.
And frankly, if you stick around and finally pass in your region, people remember you. And for a long time. If you pick up and move to Arizona, people forget you, and your obituary in the paper just brings a "I wonder who that was and why they're in our paper?". Don't fools yourself. You may have been a big lawyer at big law firm, but if you die some place distant, nobody is going to remember you.
3. Quite listening to celebrities.
I've posted this before so I'm going to be brief, and frankly extreme. But I mean it.
If you became famous because you are an entertainer, you forfeited your seriousness card and nobody, and I do mean nobody, should listen to you on anything other than your field. That's it.
Nobody should care one whit what any celebrity says on anything serious matter, whether it be politics or science or a social matter. Staying famous is the stock and trade of celebrities and no celebrity is ever going to say anything that impairs that. Ever. If Nazi Dogs For Injustice became a big deal tomorrow, all celebrities would suddenly be Nazi Dogs For Injustice.
4. Stop slandering everyone, including public figures you don't know.
lays on the grass the worms beneath him think he has come home for a visit.
Well, "international best seller" author, a lot more people are aware of Sasse and respect him than will every read any of your books, none of which I've heard of, and all of which will be in the bargain bin of the library book sale within five years.
Stating something like this may pass for whit in the 21st Century, but it's awfully close to the infantile school yard taunts of the pre Internet age. It's easy to imagine Winslow running around with the old "I guess I'll go eat worms" playground chant after a thing like that, but there's a lot of that on Twitter.
5. Accept that "I feel it", "want it" or "desire it" doesn't make it anything other than an individual feeling, want or desire.
Your own particular desires of any kind don't rise to a level of a societal need that society needs to personally ratify.
They may not even be legitimate. Just because you want something, no matter how deeply you feel it, doesn't mean its disordered. Just because you want to eat all the cake, for example, doesn't give you a protected right to do so and it doesn't mean you really should, for a multiplicity of reasons. And if you do eat it all, that doesn't mean that you have to demand everyone else accept that you ate it and agree that the problems its causing you aren't real problems.
Some Personal
1. Less posting.
I posted too much this year.
That's for a variety of reasons, none of which is a good reason for posting more in 2021 than any prior year.
I like writing, obviously, but I should be working on my novel.
I'm not going to quit posting, but I do think the 1922 retrospectives will be fewer than the 1921 ones. Of course, we have 1942 going now . . .
2. Get to work on the novel
Says it all.
3. Don't forget your old friends.
When things get busy, this is too easy to do. And then sooner or later, you are just oen of those old people that everyone has forgotten about.
While this is posted in personal, this is actually a large societal problem in the modern Western world, particularly for men.
4. Getting outdoors
Speaks for itself, but often very hard to do, as getting outdoors means less time indoors. As part of that, however, it's time for me to learn to say "no".
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