Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist, 69th Edition. TDS, Vance in the wings. Our geriatric oligarchy. Immigration spats. Banning puberty blockers. Mjuk flicka and the Mantilla Girls.

The really ugly American

Trump’s win shows us who we really are

An excellent, and exactly correct, article.

And who we are isn't very pretty.

Many people worried that the election of Donald Trump, a thoroughly reprehensible man, would mean the end of the American democracy.  It probably won't, but it does mark the complete end of the United States as a great nation in every sense. 

We have no claim, as of this last election, to any sort of exceptionalism.  A certain moral status, hard won and defended in the Civil War and the wars of the 20th Century has been forfeited, and for blisteringly limited self interest.  Indeed, much of the electorate, frankly, proved themselves ignorant, choosing the interests of billionaires over their own, based on mean and vindictive promises and a false vision of the past.  Others, limited in their  minds to a binary choice in which they felt compelled to choose between the threat of progressivism in the Democratic Party, which never saw a gender perversion or mental illness it didn't want to glorify and demand you do too, and a GOP which at least looked to some sort of sanity on such issues.  Yet others chose a narrow issue, gun control, abortion, which they highly valued and made the leap.  Others were simply mad about being lied to for decades by the Democrats and pre Trump Republicans on matters like job exportation and immigration.

Not all Trump voters are alike by any means.

But there's only one Trump.

Since being elected he's insulted Canada repeatedly in a childish manner.  On the day I'm typing this out (originally), he's threatening Panama, suggesting we're going to demand a return of the Panama Canal.  Since then he's been demanding Greenland.

The amazing thing is that in spite of the utter lunacy of these ramblings, plenty have signed on board to back them.  People who wonder how the absurdities of the Nazi Party found acceptance after 1932 now know.

I don't expect Trump to serve out his term.  Behavior like this shows that the nation's incoming Chief Executive is returning to his middle school years, years which caused his parents to send him to military school, and that return is probably organic in a man who is flabby and ancient.  We'll see, of course, but it appears to at least me that the dementia train has left the station, as it earlier clearly did for Joe Biden.  

Merely having a chief executive this age is, frankly, dangerous.

At any rate, I suspect that backers of J. D. Vance are just wanting to give things a decent interval before a cabinet finding of non compos mentis is delivered.

I'm not a Vance fan, but the sooner, the better.

Trump Derangement Syndrome

One of our dear readers, who has I might note a truly excellent blog I keep meaning to link in here, gently noted that this blog suffers from Trump Derangement Syndrome.

It's a fair accusation.

As is evident, I just can't grasp why a thoughtful highly intelligent person like our reader would vote for Trump.  I  know plenty of them I might add.  Highly educated, very well spoken, very well read, individuals who voted for a person I find nearly loathsome.

I wish they could explain it to me.

I wonder too if they fear for the nation the way that those of us who recoil form Trump do.

I will note that I perfectly grasp why people didn't vote for Harris, and wouldn't have for Biden.  Biden's descent into incapacity aside, the Democratic Party has just become, well, weird in many ways.  I noted at the time that Obergefell was decided that disaster loomed, and frankly, I was spot on.  Contrary to Kennedy's naive assumptions about his legally bankrupt ruling, Obergefell really opened the doors of a sexual and sexually perverse pandora's box, although frankly that box had been unlocked in the post war by Kinsey and Masters.

By the way, there's actually an article in Psychology Today about TDS.

Anyhow, for the Trump supporters who are routinely insulted by my posts regarding Trump, but stop in to read anyhow, thanks for doing so, and if you can explain your support for the man, I'd appreciate your doing so.

I'll confess.  I feel that Trump should have been tried for sedition and should be in prison, so my view is indeed harsh and unyielding on him.  I hope I'm proved wrong, but I expect him to be a disaster.

Waiting in the wings

Vance in uniform, and not that of a military prep school

As noted, I'm pretty confined J. D. Vance is waiting in the wings, and isn't much more of a Trump fan than I am.  I also think as a National Conservative, he's the real deal.

Love him or hate him, Vance would have made a much better contrast to Harris than Trump.  Vance actually has an intellectual concept of where he wants the country to go, and it doesn't appear in any fashion to depend on Elon Musk personally arresting the decline in the North American birth rate.

Must is a National Conservative, as noted.  He couldn't have been elected in a race against Harris.   The National Conservatives, who ranks are filled by some real intellectuals, know that they have a very limited time to get in their man.. That time is limited to the next four years.  Vance won't be able to pull off a post Trump win in 2028, and they know it.  In order to make the reforms they want, and they are genuine and massive, they need to get Vance in before then, and that depends on Trump being gone.

Age may very well remove Trump, through death.  If it doesn't, my guess is dementia will.  Then we will have Vance, and that will be quite interesting.

Oligarchs.

Drone Bee.  By Guillaume Pelletier - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=59927223

A really interesting thing about the incoming Trump administration is the now open and obvious influence of the mega rich on it.  The most obvious example is the overarching presence of the world's most wealth many, South African Elon Musk, but he's far from the only one.

It wasn't all that long ago that Republicans continually suggested that mega rich Hungarian George Soros and Mark Zuckerberg were a big problem.  Even now, Wyoming Secretary of State Chuck Gray wants to do something about "Zuck Bucks".

Love of money, as we know, is the root of all evil, and and one thing it does is to buy power.  Absolute power, we're told, such as the U.S. Supreme Court has pretty much handed over to the Executive Branch, corrupts absolutely.

Something needs to be done about this and what that something is, quite frankly, includes taxation.  Populists have to decide if they want to be drone servants of their party, or the owners of their party in this regard.

So far, it looks like the drones have it.

The immigration spat

The best argument for doing away with H1B I can imagine.  Also, not only a crude dip into vulgarity, but an unfortunate sexual insult by a man who clearly knows that's now how that actually works, given his many progeny by many willing women.  And explain to me how Evangelicals feel that this camp is moral?

It is interesting, however, how a fight has suddenly broken out in the MAGA camp which is related to this.  The GOP campaign against immigrants in the general election blurred the lines between legal and illegal immigrants.  It was relatively clear that basically many hardcore Rust Belt and rural Trumpies didn't like immigrants in general.

There are, I'd note, real reasons to be concerned about the American immigration rate.  But for immigration, the US population would be falling, which contrary to widespread belief would frankly be a very good thing.  But demonizing immigrants is flat out wrong, and we're not actually having the conversation we should be, which would have a lot more to do with conservation, economics, and yes, culture, than whatever it is that we are arguing about.

One thing now that we are arguing about is H1B, a visa program.  I've seen an immigrant Pakistani Trumpy robustly claim that this program lets in illiterate people who can't speak English in Italian restaurants to, in contrast, Elon Must backing it on the basis that that he came in the country that way and as the world's richest sperm donor, he loves himself, and everyone else should too, as he's good for the country.

He's not good for the country.

Interestingly, there's some lingering questions if Musk violated the country's laws when he came in.  He probably didn't, but it's interesting.  If he did, and I'm not saying he did, that would make him one of those super nasty law breaking immigrants who should be back up and returned to their land of origin.

On other ironies which are worth noting, this spat has really taken weird turns.  Ann Coulter told Vivek Ramaswamy that she wouldn't have voted for him as he's of Indian extraction, which is as racist as can be, but at least honest.  Some Republicans are defending H1B, others are condemning it.  Steve Bannon called Musk a toddler.  Vivek Ramaswamy fought back and claimed American culture worshipped mediocrity, implying foreign cultures do not, which is ironic given that the Freedom Caucus tends to have a deep suspicion that education in general is bad.

Frankly, this debate, if it heads in the direction Ramaswamy is taking it, might be a good thing for the populists.  Populism right now does exalt the stupid and vulgar over the educated and erudite.  He used the example of the "prom queen", which is probably misplaced, unless we regard the Hawk Tuah Girl as the nation's prom queen, which right now she frankly is..  

Ramaswamy has a point.

Trump clearly is okay with some immigrants, such as ones he'll marry.  It makes me wonder what dinner talk is like at the old Trump homestead.

When things hit the news.

On this story, I had the odd experience of having somebody say the other day "I see you are now having trouble up there with immigrants too". They were from Texas, and this was a phone call.

I had to ask what he meant, but apparently the arrest of an illegal alien here made national news.

It's interesting in that this isn't all that newsworthy here.  I don't know why people would think otherwise, but rural states like Wyoming have had illegal aliens just as long as anyone else, and given the blue collar nature of work here, probably longer.

Gerontocracy

Not only are we developing an oligarch problem, it has a gerontocracy problem as well, which this past election certainly pointed out.  We have an ancient (and seemingly impaired) President, and an ancient, and rather odd acting, President Elect.

Trump is 78 years old, of course.  Locally, one of our Senators is 72, and the other 70.  Not young.  Our Congresswoman is a comparatively youthful 62.

Texas Republican Congresswoman Kay Granger is 81, and is now living in a memory care facility.  She hasn't cast a vote since July, which of course makes sense.  

Of note, she spent a year, starting in January 2023, as the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee.  That says something, and what it says is that mental decline can really be rapid.

Why, as a nation, are we comfortable with this?

On a positive, if perhaps sad note, she did not seek reelection.

The UK bans puberty blockers

The US should follow suit.

The entire "trans" movement is really based on an illusion of epic proportions.  We are, truly, born male and female while some are more masculine than others, or more feminine than others, boys are boys, as they say, and girls girls.  People who are confused on this point are, in reality, very few, and those who persistently are mentally ills.  Almost all teens who claim to be "trans", aren't and the overwhelming majority of them come out of it relatively quickly.  For that matter, adults who claim to be "trans" aren't.  

Puberty blockers are child abuse on the Aktion T4 and there's no excuse for it.

Back to the populists for a second, it's insanity like giving children puberty blockers that helps explain their rise.  In future years this behavior will be regarded the same way eugenics in Nazi Germany is now.  How mass lawsuits have not broken out is beyond me.  

Mjuk flicka.  Soft Girls, Kept Women, Feminist Women, and a More Natural Life.

ICELANDIC MILKMAID ON HER MORNING ROUND

This is a fine, sturdy pony standing so stockily for his photograph, and he can make light of his burden of buxom beauty with her heavy can of milk. She cares not for saddle or stirrups, for most of these island people are born to horseback, and her everyday costume amply serves the purpose of a riding-habit for this strapping Viking's daughter, with her long tresses shining in the breeze.  

(Original caption, of interest here I wouldn't call this young lady "buxom" or "strapping", but just healthy.  This might say something about how standards have changed over time.)

Mjuk flicka a Swedish term for "a kind pleasant" girl, but it sort of translates as "soft girl".  In this context its a bit of a trend, and one that's worrying feminist.

It probably should.

We've had other threads along these lines, but its fairly clear that a fair number of women have come to the conclusion that the push into the business and working world that came along in the 1970s hasn't really done them as much as a favor as the propaganda then and now would have it.  This recalls the TikTok breakdown some young woman had that's discussed here:

Women at work. "Whoever fought, for women to get jobs. . . . why?. . . . why did you do that?" Looking at women (and men) in the workplace, and modern work itself, with a long lens.

And also here:

A lamentation. The modern "world.*

One of the odd things that the "soft girl" is exhibiting is that she's an example of reinventing old social norms backwards and highly imperfectly, and that is concerning.  Rather than acting as a very traditional wife, she's essentially reduced herself to concubinage.  Her male supporter could sever ties at the drop of a hat.  She's serving in the traditional concubine role, free of any children or responsibility, and providing what we might charitably refer to as companionship.  This is bound not to go well, which reaching back to tradition without the duties of responsibilities associated it, usually does.

I can't help but note the contrast to the Mantilla Girls I continue to run into at Mass, including Christmas vigil. Due to being in a packed church, combined with my wife' s decision making process, we ended up in the cry room.  This followed a brief pre Mass trip to the balcony, where there was room, but then the long suffering spouse brought up 200 other options which sent us back down.  Anyhow, there was room in the cry room, which also contained one extended family with a baby.  The baby never cried.  One of the parishioners in the room was a Mantilla Girl, quite attractive and very nicely dressed.

Its interesting for a variety of reasons, including the contrast to the soft girl.  The Mantilla Girls have a much more realistic grasp of the world.

Mehr Mensch sein.

Related threads:

What the Young Want.* The Visual Testimony of the Trad Girls. The Authenticity Crisis, Part One.

i nolunt

Young Diognetus in the modern world.

Last edition:

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist, 67th Edition. So you say you want a revolution?

Labels: 2020s, 2024, Aktion T4, Capitalism, Civil Unrest, Corporate Capitalism, Crime, Distributism, Distributist Lament, Donald Trump, Narodnaya Volya, Populism, Terrorism, The wealthy, Zeitgeist

Wednesday, December 20, 1944. Besieged Bastogne.

Bastogne was reached by the Germans and put under siege.

The 3d Army began advancing against German forces committed to Wachts am Rhein.

"These American soldiers from the 28th Division Band and Quartermaster Company stayed and fought the Germans in Wiltz, Belgium, until their ammunition was exhausted. Shown at Bastogne, Belgium, these soldiers evacuated Wiltz after they had used all their ammunition. Bastogne, Belgium, 20 December, 1944. 28th Infantry Division."

"Troops of 630th Tank Destroyer Battalion, all their vehicles lost in combat, manning the front line near Bastogne, Belgium, 20 December 1944. Troops of 630th Tank Destroyer Battalion, all their vehicles lost in combat, manning the front line near Bastogne, Belgium, 20 December 1944."

Dwight Eisenhower was promoted to five star rank.

The US Women Airforce Service Pilots organization was disbanded as no longer needed.  Hap Arnold, who had advocated for incorporating the organization into the Air Force, noted:

The WASP has completed its mission. Their job has been successful. But as is usual in war, the cost has been heavy. Thirty-eight WASP have died while helping their country move toward the moment of final victory. The Air Forces will long remember their service and their final sacrifice.

Last edition:

Tuesday, December 19, 1944. Reacting to Wacht am Rhein.

Labels: 1940s, 1944, Army, Bastogne, Battle of Leyte, Battle of the Bulge, Bernard Law Montgomery, British Army, Chester Nimitz, Dwight Eisenhower, German Army, Omar Bradley, St. Vith, World War Two

Monday, September 25, 1944. Withdrawal at Arnhem.

British airborne POWs at Arnhem.  By Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-S73820 / CC-BY-SA 3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0 de, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5369460

Operation Market Garden failed to achieve its final objective at Arnhem and the British 1st Airborne was ordered to evacuate at night across the Rhine.  Only 2,400 men of the 10,000 that dropped into fight at the city were recovered.  1,100 were killed in the battle.  6.400 were captured.  A few remained hidden in Arnhem with Dutch families.

The battle achieved legendary status with the British nearly immediately, and was memorialized in a 1946 movie featuring many original British combatants entitled Theirs Is The Glory.  In spite of the significant American role, the battle tended to be ignored by American historians until 1974's book A Bridge Too Far by popular historian Cornelius Ryan, which was turned into a major movie in 1977.  

Operation Market Garden has been a matter of enduring controversy in military history circles.  It was an unusually bold plan for Montgomery, but it also emphasized his own forces, with the addition of available American airborne, for what was essentially a very long strike for a roundabout path into Germany based on a narrow advance over a single road, and depending upon all of the bridges that were targeted being taken.  If things had worked perfectly, it's doubtful that it would have brought the war to a conclusion in 1944, as was hoped, as the Germans, after the fall of France, were effectively regrouping for the defense of Germany.

It tends to be portrayed as an overall failure, which in many ways it was.  It did, however, liberate much of the Netherlands, although it helped to create the tactical scenario which gave rise to the German offensive in Belgium in December.  At the same time, however, Wacht am Rhein, which had already been approved, arguably only achieve a wasting of German resources in the final month of the war.  Moreover, if the offensive was a defeat, as some claim, it bears comparison to the treatment of the Battle of Anzio, which was arguably on part with it as a failure but which is not regarded as a defeat, or the delayed taking of Caen.

The British 2nd Army took Helmond and Deurne east of Eindhoven.  The Canadian 3d Division attacked trapped German troops in Calais.

The British urged foreign workers and slave laborers in Germany to rebel.

The Red Army took Haapsalu, Estonia on the Baltic.

Hitler ordered the formation of the Volkssturm, the militia formed of civilian men.

Partisans occupied Banja Luka, Yugoslavia.

Harvard announced that for the first time it would admit women to medical school starting in the fall of 1945.

Claire Poe of Miami Beach appeared on the cover of a Life magazine special issue entitled "A Letter to GI's" because she was attractive in the girl next store sort of way.  She was only 18, which is interesting to Generation Jones members like myself, as she clearly looked much more mature than 18 year old girls did when I was 18.

Life revealed that she'd just entered college with hopes of becoming a math teacher, and was corresponding to a Sergeant in Puerto Rico and an Ensign at Fort Lauderdale.

Last edition:

Sunday, September 24, 1944. Market Garden reaches the Rhine.

Labels: 1920s, 1924, 1940s, 1944, Battle of Arnhem, Battle of Nijmegen, Battle of Peleliu, boats and ships, Fascism, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Operation Overlord, Philippines, World War Two

Sunday, September 25, 1774. Clementina Rind.

Cementina Rind, age 34, died in Williamsburg, Virginia. She was the first female printer in North America, having assumed the role of publisher of the Virginia Gazette upon the death of her husband the prior year.  She left five children.

This is interesting for a variety of reasons, including the common early arrival of death in the 18th Century, and that women did occupy roles that would surprise us.

Last edition:

Friday, September 23, 1774. The York Tea Party.

Labels: 1770s, 1774, American Revolution, Colonial North America, Maine

Saturday, August 23, 1924. Princess Petrolia. Refinery expansion in Glenrock.

 

The Wyoming obsession with petroleum was much in evidence in the Saturday paper, with a beauty pageant title named after the stuff.

Glenrock's refinery was being expanded.

It no longer exists.

And the Italian air crew, which did survive ditching in the Atlantic, was reported as still missing.

Last edition:

Friday, August 22, 1924. Marxist harassing Marx.

Labels: 1920s, 1924, 1924 Election, Communists, Democratic Party, German Weimar Republic, Outer space, Radio

Monday, August 4, 1924. Around the world disruptions.

Women commenced competing in an Olympic type event, the Women's International and British Games, for the first time. 

A British attempt to fly around the world ended with the plane crashing in the Bering Sea, while a US plan suffered a similar fate in the Atlantic.

Last edition

Sunday, August 3, 1924. German memorial day.

Labels: 1920s, 1924, Afghanistan, Belarus, Berlin Germany, Communists, First Around The World Flight, Germany, Iceland, Iraq, It was because of World War One, Judaism, Poland, religion, USSR, Weimar Germany

Monday, July 3, 1944. Airborne at Numfoor, Red Army in Minsk.

The Red Army retook Minsk, leaving the path through Belarus and into Poland open of urban obstacles.  It had been occupied by the Germans since June 28, 1941, which means that the Wehrmacht in Barbarossa had taken it in an amazingly short amount of time.

German forces that had been defending Minsk were now trapped east of the city, a bad place to be.

Gen. Georg Lindemann was relieved as commander of Army Group North and replaced with Johannes Frießner.

Lindemann would not be returned to service until February 1945, when he was placed in command of German troops in Denmark.  Frießner would go into retirement, after being relieved from a subsequent assignment, in December 1945.  After the war, he was an apologist for the German war effort and the Waffen SS, but did advise West Germany in regard to the creation of the Bundesheer.

The US 1st Army launched an offensive with the goal of establishing a new line from Coutances to St. Lo.

Sixty-six American servicemen of the 130th Chemical Processing Company were killed by a V-1 drone at Chelsea, the largest loss of US life from a V-1.  Nine civilians were also killed.

Moroccan troops in Siena.

The French took Siena, Italy.  Well. . . French and Moroccans.  The British took Cortona.

The Germans launched the Emergency Fighter Program (Jägernotprogramm),

U.S. Paratroopers took Kamiriz Airfield on Numfoor, but with heavy casualties.

Airborne drops in the Pacific and Asia are nearly forgotten.

The Allies prevailed in the Battle of Imphal.  

The U-154 was sunk in the Atlantic by the U.S. Navy.

Filipino women working for the Office of War Information. Left to right, Adelaida Torres, Robert Kleiman, Salud Darrago, and Julie Bayona.

Last edition:

Sunday, July 2, 1944. Plots in motion and the SS Jean Nicolet

Labels: 1940s, 1944, Adolf Hitler, Army, Australian Army, Battle of Numfoor, British Army, Claus von Stauffenberg, Gerd von Runstedt, German Wehrmacht, Italy, July 20 Plot, New Guinea, Saipan, War Crimes, World War Two

Conservatives need to stop saying stupid stuff.

Candace Owens claimed, and I quote:

I would be terrified if I got onto a plane and I saw a woman flying the plane.

Madison March, Air Force Officer and fighter pilot, and Miss Colorado.*

Oh, horsecrap, she would not be.

And that's just a stupid thing to say on multiple levels. 

For one thing, if you "got onto a plane" and saw anybody flying it, apparently you are engaging in some fancy movie gymnastics a la Sisu, as when you get on planes, you might see the pilots in the cockpit, but they're sitting there waiting for people to board the planes. 

And unless you last got on an airplane in about 1979 or so, you've seen women flying them.

What Owens is attempting to say is that United Airlines' CEO was quoted regarding a desire to hire female pilots on an employment diversity basis, and her point is that this means they aren't hiring some qualified male employees in order to fulfill the quota.

Well, okay, but that requires a little more attention to presentation and detail to say that. First of all, in order to be a commercial airline pilot, you have to have a lot of hours.  American rules are so strict that compared to the rest of the world, introductory commercial pilots are much more experienced than those of other nations.  

Secondly, while I do have a problem with women in combat (I have an old post on it I've never finished), women have been flying aircraft since Raymonde de LaRoche took it up in 1910.

The former actress and engineer did die in an airplane wreck in 1919, but if you look at the history of early aviators and find those who lived very long, they're the exception to the rule.  At any rate, by World War Two flying female aviators were so common that the US was using them to ferry every type of aircraft we used to the combat recipients, and even the Germans, who famously sought to avoid using women in anything but the home making and baby creation department, used some female aviators (and oddly enough, as anti-aircraft gun crew members).

Which brings me to this.  I'm familiar with efforts to readjust the scale on occupations through gender based selection personally.  I can't say for certain, but a couple of appointments that I put in for over the last thirty years went to women because that probably weighted in their favor for this reason. But, having said that, they weren't bad choices at all, and are really good in their jobs. Same thing at work. They were qualified to start with. Too bad for me, I guess, but that doesn't mean the choices were bad ones at all.

Which gets to this.

I am a conservative, and a real one. But saying stupid stuff, to include anti-scientific stuff, makes all conservatives look dumb, and frankly weighs the scale towards dumb.

Most people hearing Adams say this will just think, "well that's dumb", but somebody somewhere, as Adams is a populist hero, will in fact think; "doggone it. . that's right. . wimmin ain't outto be flying them big machine, why they'll panic and crash everything. . hand me another Bud, will ya".

Now, mind you, the left does this too, but with Donald Trump being the flag bearer for the political right, right now, and Trump regularly saying stuff that is dumb, the political right really has attention drawn to itself on these sorts of statements.  Indeed, as real conservatives have fled the party, or gone into seclusion, those who are willing to say real stupid stuff, such as the US is going to "liberate" Canada, or that the January 6 rioters were tourists, have become numerous. As the tolerance for their statements grow, they become more numerous in and of themselves.

There is a real place for conservatism in this country.  That's being completely lost.  Unfortunately, as it looks more and more like Donald Trump will return to office, people willing to tolerate him and things said in his support are increasing, when it is already well established he cannot be controlled, and that his followers cannot be either.

Saying stupid stuff doesn't help that.

Footnotes:

*Hey, just so we can show we're no slackers, in 2023 Sgt. Rebecca Bridger, a bandsman, of the Wyoming Army National Guard was our state's Miss Wyoming.

Okay, she's not combat arms and doesn't fly planes, but still.

Monday, January 7, 1974. Sweden rations gasoline.

Gas rationing began in Sweden, the first Western nation to do so in response to the ongoign crisis caused by the Arab Oil Embargo.

The four-year-long Gombe Chimpanzee War broke out in Tanzania's Gombe Stream National Park.

Margaret Queen Adams.

Margaret Queen Adams, née Margaret Queen Phillips, the first female deputy sheriff in the United States died at age 99. She had served in the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department from 1912 to 1947.  She worked in the evidence department.

Sunday Morning Scene. A Reddit Exchange.

 An interesting Reddit exchange:

Subreddit Icon

r/AskAPriest

•Posted by u/ajm1211

Why can’t women preach the gospel or become priests?

1 Timothy 2:12

I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet.

1 Corinthians 14:34

The women should keep silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission, as the Law also says.

I’ve seen these quotes from The Bible but is there any other reason?

Is that what these quotes refer to?

Almostreverend

7 hr. ago

Maronite Priest

Women can, should, and do teach and preach the Gospel. Just usually not in the mass. Do you seek out and listen to holy women's voices in how to live the Gospel and what Jesus teaches?

Now with regards to priests. I would like to ask you a philosophical question. Are men and women different? If they are different is it possible that there are some things men can't do and some things women can't do? What are those things? If they are the same what difference would it make?

7 hr. ago

Hi, that’s what I meant, they can’t teach in a Christian gathering.

Of course they are different. It’s just there is a big argument behind if they should be allowed or not depending on the Christian denomination people are in.

I was hoping for a more definitive answer as to why if I’m honest lol

Almostreverend

6 hr. ago

Maronite Priest

They are allowed to teach in Christian gatherings, it happens all the time. It doesn't matter what each denomination thinks only what Christ taught.

ajm1211

OP

·

4 hr. ago

So why does Catholic.com say different?

There were other roles that Christ had in mind for women. For example, they played a key role in the spread of the Gospel, being the first to spread the news of the risen Christ. They were also allowed to pray and prophesy in church (1 Cor. 11:1–16), but they were not to assume the function of teaching in the Christian assembly (1Cor. 14:34–38; 1 Tim. 2:1–14), which was restricted to the clergy.

https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/why-cant-women-be-priests

robberrito

7 hr. ago

I am quite curious about this subject. Certainly women have special roles: men cannot bear children, after all. However, is it not… unbalanced in a sense that only one half of the human race is permitted to become able to do the sacraments? As a man, I will always be able to do that, and if I were a woman, I would never in my life be capable of doing these same sacraments. The sacraments are what life is centered around. Would that not make men more valuable in a sense? Not trying to be misogynistic or anything, just genuinely curious about your thoughts.

Almostreverend

edited 6 hr. ago

Maronite Priest

Anyone can baptize, but baptism is for the baptized not the baptizer. Lay people can't confirm, but the point of confirmation is to be confirmed. Lay people can't anoint the sick sacramentally, but the point of the sacrament is to be anointed. Consecrating the Eucharist is not an end in itself, but Christ's goal is that we take and eat.

The priesthood is not an end in itself, it is for others. It is so that others can know Christ. Guess what when we are baptized we become priests for others and we are called by love to bring God to them and them to God.

robberrito

6 hr. ago

Thanks. This makes a little more sense to me. I greatly appreciate your words.

Tuesday, December 7, 1973. Women join the Coast Guard on a regular basis.

The United States Coast Guard accepted its first regular female members, Chief Warrant Officer Alice T. Jefferson, Yeoman First Class Wanda May Parr and Yeoman Second Class Margaret A. Blackman.

This came about due to the elimination of the Coast Guard's Women's Reserve.

Jefferson had jointed the SPARS in 1943 and remained in the Coast Guard until 1984, when she retired.  She passed away in 2019 at age 96.

The world's most dangerous airline, Aeroflot, crashed is Flight 964 at Moscow's airport, killing 16 out of 75 people on board.

Convicted child murderer Lester Eubanks was released for unsupervised Christmas shopping in Ohio and disappeared.  He remains a fugtive.

Thursday, September 20, 1973. The Battle of the Sexes and the Death of Jim Croce.

"The Battle of the Sexes" took place in the Houston Astrodome between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs. King won three straight sets.

King and Riggs prior to the match.

This event was a big deal at the time, and I can recall my parents watching the television coverage of it.  It's always seemed odd to me as Riggs, who had been a tennis great in his youth, was well past his prime, while King was in hers.  Riggs, however, was quite the promoter and much of the attention can be attributed to that.

It was, up until that point, the most watched tennis match of all time.

Jim Croce, age 30, was killed along with five others when a chartered Beechcraft E18S hit a tree during takeoff from the Natchitoches Regional Airport in Louisiana.  

Croce was a well known pop singer at the time.  When in grade school, one year we had to learn his Time In A Bottle song for a performance of some sort.  Perhaps it's for that reason, but I've never liked that song since then, and I didn't like it then.  Or maybe its just the song.  I have always liked his Leroy Brown song.